


Our Fortress Gold

by ellizablue



Series: Winter and Spring [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: But I’ll warn ahead of time before the jump and you’ll see it coming, F/M, Please don’t read if you haven’t read the story that comes before this bc this will not make sense, Targaryen babies - here they are, Targaryen legacy - restored, Targaryens being loved and supported - for days batch, Targaryens with DRAGONS - without a doubt!, This is just so I can cover all I want to cover, also…..r’hllor. he’s hot right?, but the main plot here is simply TARGARYEN RESTORATION in like every way, fic title comes from the song cypress queen by the last bison, thank you v much, there will be at least one major time jump during this fic, there will be various subplots throughout this fic, without making this fic 5 million words long
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2020-06-28 14:10:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 256,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19813924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellizablue/pseuds/ellizablue
Summary: House Targaryen rebuilds and grows.[Sequel to Winter Came (With Fire and Blood)]





	1. Eyes of a Holy Fire

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back, back again......for better or for worse 💀 
> 
> This first chapter focuses heavily on Jon and Dany, so just know that any burning questions you still have at the end of it in regards to other characters (where they are, what they're up to, or what their dynamic is with another character) will be answered in coming chapters 😊 After a close read most SHOULD be clear, but just know that anything you're still unclear on will undoubtedly be explained further at some point. 
> 
> This picks up three years after the end of Winter Came (With Fire and Blood).

I.

"He couldn't have died at a worse time.”

Daenerys arches her brows slightly, maintaining a mild expression. She sees Ser Davos scowl.

“How terribly inconsiderate of Ser Vitus to perish without first checking your schedule,” Yara says, face hard as iron.

Tyrion scoffs. “I’m merely emphasizing the inconvenience. Who shall we get to ride in his place in the last joust? The tourney begins, might I remind you, at—”

“— midday,” Ayra and Yara chorus, finishing Tyrion’s sentence for him.

“Yes! Midday!” Tyrion echoes, growing visibly stressed.

“We won’t have a problem finding someone to stand in for Ser Vitus. There are many men who would be honored to,” Ser Davos says.

Lord Gendry leans forward. His dark brows are drawn down in a look of obvious concern. “Any word from Grand Maester Aethelwyne on what caused it? He seemed fine yesterday.”

“Fever, she said,” Sansa answers. She looks troubled. “That’s the second healthy person to die from a sudden fever this week. The fourth this month.” 

That fact hasn’t eluded Daenerys’s notice. She feels Jon’s eyes weighing on her; when she looks across the table and meets his gaze, he presses his lips into a tight line. He clearly hasn’t overlooked that fact, either. And neither has the majority of the small council and their guests: an uneasy hush falls over the room, one that causes Daenerys to reach towards the center of the ebony table, where Princess Lyaella is sitting. She sets her hand on her daughter’s calf, her heart tightening in her chest. Lyaella turns and looks at her briefly, smiling with the full radiance of the moon, and then she turns back to the paper she’s relentlessly folding. Prince Quentyn showed Lyaella how to fold a bit of parchment into a flower three days prior, and the princess became obsessed quickly. She’s spent all morning sitting on the small council table trying to recreate his flower with any paper she can get her hands on.

“It’s not the same,” Arya refutes at once. “Ser Vitus _wasn’t_ healthy: he had a festering wound from his last joust, one he kept secret so that he would be permitted to participate in Lyaella’s tourney. Maester Aethelwyne said the infection spread to his blood.”

“What of the other three people this month?” Sansa demands. She reaches over to her left and sets her hand on Tyrion’s arm, drawing his gaze to her face. “There were no injuries or prior conditions in the other three, correct, Lord Tyrion?”

Lord Tyrion nods. He sets his hand atop Sansa’s as he replies, his touch consoling. “They were in otherwise perfect health. I believe, Your Graces, that we should send for Conclave investigation. It could be something as simple as a bad grain shipment, or something as serious as the Great Spring Sickness.”

Daenerys looks down at her lap at that. She stares at the thin silver band around her third finger, a physical representation of her promise to her people, a simpler version of a crown. Her heart thumps in her chest with a type of fear she knows stems from the terror of helplessness. She can— and does— protect her people from those who would harm them, from starvation, from chains…but what can she do to protect them from plague?

“The Great Spring Sickness,” Robin Arryn echoes, his voice sharp with an edge of uneasiness. “It never struck the Vale, but I learned it was terrible…”

“History remembers it as more than terrible,” Samwell Tarly interjects gravely. “We should all pray to our gods that this is something different.”

Samwell looks at Jon as if to gauge Jon’s level of concern, but Jon is looking at his daughter, his jaw tight and his face expressionless. Dany’s certain he’s feeling the same as her: momentarily powerless. It’s an uneasy feeling when, for over three years now, they’ve been able to control most everything…they’ve been able to protect those they love against most everything. This is a threat of a different sort.

“Ly,” Jon calls softly, and Lyaella turns to look at her father at once, gracing him with a smile as bright as the one she’d given Daenerys. “Come show me what you’ve made.”

Her paper ‘flower’ is nothing more than a messily folded triangle, but that doesn’t matter: Daenerys knows Jon just wants her with him, and she wants her with one of them, too. It’s silly, and she knows it is…it’s not as if she or Jon can envelop their little daughter in their arms and protect her from sickness. But seeing her scoot across the council tabletop and fall into Jon’s arms helps ease her anxiety, anyway.

“A moonboom,” Lyaella tells Jon, shoving the paper flower up for him to examine so enthusiastically that it nearly pokes him in the eye.

“I knew the moment I saw it,” Jon says proudly, and her smile grows. He gently takes the “flower” from Lyaella and turns it over in his hands, studying every clumsily folded side. Daenerys smiles softly as he lifts it up and sniffs at it as if he expects to be greeted by the sweet scent of a true Moonbloom. Lyaella falls into a fit of giggles, and when Jon passes the flower back to her, she lifts it curiously to her own nose. It’s deeply adorable; Jon kisses her braids, as overcome with affection as Dany is. He turns his focus back to the council, meeting Dany’s eyes briefly. They share a smile.

“Let’s listen together, okay?” Jon asks their daughter.

Lyaella rests her ear over Jon’s heart. She hugs his arm to her chest, her eyes shutting in concentration at once. “Yes, okay,” she affirms.

She’s good at listening. Today is only Lyaella’s third name day, but her young age doesn’t keep her from joining the rest of the council. She’s sat in on every single council meeting since they returned to King’s Landing after her birth. She was nursed at this table daily, she was rocked to sleep listening to the lullaby of political arguments and debates, she took her first steps near the window in this room, she first said _mamma_ in Daenerys’s arms in the very seat she’s sitting in now. Their princess is learning how to rule by example every day, and Daenerys wouldn’t have it any other way.

“What happened the last time the Great Spring Sickness struck?” Lord Gendry asks.

“It ravaged most of Westeros, particularly King’s Landing,” Samwell answers. “It took King Daeron the Good, Prince Valarr, Prince Matarys, and many other noblemen and commonfolk alike. Tens of thousands died. People would wake up feeling perfectly fine and they would be dead by late evening.”

Daenerys turns to Ser Davos, hoping he’s got some words of wisdom. He looks thoughtful more than uneasy, and that helps to ease some of the pressure off Dany’s heart.

“I think it’s far too early to say this is the Great Spring Sickness or anything like it,” Yara decides. “Four people in a month isn’t enough to panic us. I say we keep an eye on it over the length of the tourney, and at the end, before we all go our separate ways again, we should meet and reassess. Will the Lord of the Riverrun be joining us for the tourney?”

“No,” Sansa answers. “My uncle wasn’t feeling up to the journey, but we can send a raven to him to keep him updated. Lord Hornwood is also absent, but he’s merely late: he wrote and said he’d arrive the second day of the tourney. He’ll be here in time for a final meeting. With him accounted for, and my uncle receiving a summary raven, all regions of Westeros will be accounted for.”

“Good,” Lord Tyrion says. “Queen Yara is right: we should all stay on top of this. Even if it’s nothing.”

“Should we be worried?” Lord Robin asks. The purse of his brow tells Daenerys he already is. “Surely there’s a way to stop it since it was stopped before?”

It’s Bran Stark who answers that.

“It was _contained_ before,” Bran corrects. His hands clench into tight fists atop the table, his knuckles turning white. It happens every time a memory from the years he spent possessed surges to the front of his mind. “Lord Bloodraven helped stop the spread by burning every infected body in the Dragonpit with wildfire.”

The silence that falls over the table at that is a different sort than the one that preceded it. At once, from the moment ‘Lord Bloodraven’ leaves Bran’s mouth, every pair of eyes drift over to Daenerys. She remains sitting tall, her expression neutral. But her stomach twists as it always does at any mention of Brynden Rivers.

Of all the eyes focused on her, it’s Bran’s she seeks. Bran was the most unexpected thing of all to greet the Targaryens following their return to King’s Landing after Lyaella’s birth; they were told prior to their departure to Dragonstone that Bran was hours or days from death, but when they returned, he was sitting in bed, taking pureed foods and responding to simple yes or no questions. It took weeks and weeks for him to recover enough to begin to explain how he pulled through. He eventually told Daenerys that, upon her destruction of Lord Bloodraven, a ‘weight’ had lifted from his brain, enabling him to fight for his own life again. Enabling him to remember who he was, what he had once wanted to be.

It was a hard road, and it still is. He only ever seems happy when he’s riding his horse or shooting arrows with Arya from horseback. When he visits them in King’s Landing, he sometimes screams so loudly in his sleep that it wakes Lyaella from the other end of the castle. But he’s alive, and his mind is free, and he tells Daenerys that’s worth fighting for despite every nightmare and every scar. She has to agree.

“Let’s not rush to burn everyone running a temperature just yet,” Daenerys finally says. She sees Lyaella’s eyes open at the sound of her voice. She watches Daenerys, her grey eyes soft and thoughtful. As always, Lyaella’s unconditional love and faith in Daenerys makes her feel safe, grounded— powerful. All things she needs to feel right now. “We should first send our condolences to House Serrett before all else. Lord Serrett lost his son— that cannot be overlooked in our rush to be preemptive in regards to this potential sickness. A toast should be done in Ser Vitus’s honor tonight as well. We will send a raven to the Conclave before the tourney, asking them to send Maesters here to fully assess the situation.”

“In the meantime,” Jon adds, his powerful voice echoing through the room, “we should choose one of our sickhouses to be a quarantine facility for anyone taken with fever, as a precaution. Anyone with a fever who ventures to the other sickhouses should, at once, be escorted to that one. That will help us keep up with how many are reporting fevers, and it will help keep exposure down.”

Daenerys nods firmly to show her avid agreement. Lyaella nods along with her.

“If we’re planning precautions, we all know the obvious one: the princess shouldn’t leave the Garden until we’re certain this isn’t something to worry about,” Arya says.

Lyaella lifts her head from Jon’s chest at that, her light eyebrows rising high on her forehead.

“I don’t want to!” she protests at once, understanding completely what Arya is saying. “I want Moonboom and Dogon!”

“We will still see them,” Daenerys reassures her at once. “Auntie Arya just means it isn’t safe for you to be around large crowds, which means we won’t be going to the audience hall much, and we won’t be walking around Flea Bottom, either.”

Lyaella frowns. It pulls at Daenerys’s heart: she _hates_ causing Lyaella upset, no matter the reason. But she knows Arya is right: Lyaella is too precious to risk.

“Why?” Lyaella asks.

“Because people might be ill.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, darling,” Daenerys admits. “We don’t know why.”

Lyaella’s frown deepens. She looks up at Jon.

“It’s okay,” Jon assures her quietly. “We’ve just got to be careful, that’s all. That just means we’ll spend most our time here together or at the Dragonpit together.”

“Or the sky?” Lyaella asks hopefully.

She loves nothing in life so much as riding on dragonback. All her many other joys— listening to her father sing, ‘swordfighting’ with Arya and Greyworm, picking flowers with Ghost, reading with Dany, going on walks with Ser Davos, watching the glowing metal in the blacksmith forges, napping with Moonbloom in the courtyard— fade in comparison to that.

Daenerys and Jon smile. “Yes, or in the sky. We’ll ride more. Drogon would love that.”

“It stands to reason that we should also consider postponing the princess’s name day tourney,” Sansa says. Lord Tyrion makes a face at once, one that Sansa doesn’t miss. “I know we’ve put a lot of time into it and many people, including some of us, have traveled a long way, but if we do have some sickness running rampant here, having all those people grouped together will only accelerate the spread of it. We could put it off until someone from the Conclave arrives.”

“She’s got a point,” Samwell admits.

“I hardly think canceling an entire three-day long tourney the day of due to four people getting ill in a month is rational,” Yara refutes. “Caution is one thing— hysterics are another. We’ve got no proof this is anything more than a typical sickness.”

“It’s odd how it hit those three so quickly and so violently, though…” Lord Robin says uneasily. “The Grand Maester clearly thought it was odd enough to mention it.”

“It does seem extreme to cancel the tourney entirely,” Lord Gendry agrees with Yara.

Daenerys is about to suggest that they send for the Grand Maester so that they may get her input on this, but right as she’s about to, light cramping grips her lower abdomen. It distracts her more than it pains her: she shifts slightly in her seat, troubled. Moments later, she becomes convinced she feels wetness between her thighs; her blood runs cold, her heart sinks, her face warms. She shifts again and glances down at her lap, but she doesn’t see anything bleeding onto the rose-colored fabric of her dress. Not yet, anyway.

She rises to her feet, dread leaden in her stomach. Her eyes burn, and all she can think is: _No. No. No._

Everyone stands as soon as she does. She doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes.

“I will return shortly,” she tells them. “Excuse me.”

She turns to hurry from the council chamber, but before she can step out, she hears Lyaella’s little footsteps following close behind.

“Mamma!” she calls. She tries to say _Mother_ — she’s been attempting it lately, thinking herself ‘big’ now that she’s three— but it comes out sounding more like _muver._ “Muver!”

Daenerys stops despite the fact that her skin is crawling with an urgency to flee. She turns to look back at her daughter. Lyaella sinks her hand into Daenerys’s as soon as she reaches her. She holds her ivory blanket in her other hand: it goes everywhere with her, and now is no exception.

“I want to go with you,” Lyaella says, holding tight to Dany’s hand. And how could she deny her that?

Daenerys leans over and lifts Lyaella up, perching her on her hip. She kisses her forehead and continues walking towards the nearest privy, thankfully located at the end of the corridor. She can feel her guards’ concerned eyes as she pushes into the privy with Lyaella— because she’s shaking now, visibly upset. Because she already knows what she’s going to find.

She sets Lyaella on a chair by the copper bathtub.

“I’ll be right back,” she tells her.

Lyaella nods. She spreads her ivory blanket over her lap and reaches at once for one of the combs on the table beside the tub. She grabs her braid and begins combing the curling ends of it lightly, content enough with that task that she doesn’t complain as Dany steps away into the sectioned-off part of the privy with the chamberpot seat. Daenerys doesn’t bother sitting to investigate: she hikes her dress up where she stands and pulls her riding breeches down. Her heart sits low as she stares at her smallclothes, at the blood blooming across the pale rose silk, dark and rust-colored. There’s not much of it at all, but that means little: she knows it must be her moon blood— and that’s the blood she desperately doesn’t want to see.

She squeezes her eyes shut as if that might erase what she’s seen. Her lungs fold in on themselves, weighing heavy in her chest, making it difficult to breathe as she had been. Her disappointment is violent: it sparks and flares in an instant and razes her heart, ’til Dany is certain nothing is left but a void. She wonders why emptiness feels so painful. Shouldn’t emptiness be a lack of anything at all? But it doesn’t feel like that. It’s tainted with sorrow. With guilt. With defeat. Inside her emptiness is the weight of everything she wants— everything she’s now certain she won’t be able to have.

She slowly removes her stained smallclothes and checks the back of her breeches and dress, but they’re unmarred by blood; there wasn’t enough of it to bleed through. As she cleans herself up, she listens to her daughter singing in a high, melodic voice from the other side of the half-wall, her heart as light as Dany’s is heavy. Her singing severs when Dany steps out to wash her hands in the basin. Somehow, her daughter knows.

“What’s wong?” Lyaella asks, as curious as she is concerned. She slips from the chair and crosses over to Dany, hugging her leg at once. “What, Mamma?”

Dany’s got tears in her eyes, and she knows Lyaella hasn’t missed that. She won’t lie to her daughter: she respects her far too much. She reaches down and grasps Lyaella’s tiny shoulders, gently moving her back so that she can kneel in front of her to bring them eye-to-eye. Lyaella’s lips part as she stares at her. She reaches up and strokes underneath Daenerys’s eyes, touching her tears.

“You’re sad,” Lyaella breathes, stunned, visibly uneasy. She lightly touches Dany’s wet eyelashes. She asks her favorite question: “Why?”

Daenerys brings her into her arms and hugs her close. Lyaella grips her back as tightly as she can manage.

“I wanted something terribly,” Daenerys admits, her voice thicker than she’d like. “But I didn’t get it.”

“Oh,” Lyaella mumbles. There’s a thoughtful pause. “A hawp?”

Daenerys laughs. It’s as bemused as it is affectionate; she can hardly believe she’s laughing when she feels so upset, but Lyaella always knows what to say to make her smile.

“No, not a harp,” Daenerys says, kissing Lyaella’s hair. “You’re still very taken with harps, aren’t you?”

“They’re lovey,” Lyaella answers at once. Daenerys can feel her smile against her chest.

“ _You’re_ lovely,” Daenerys whispers. She lifts Lyaella into her arms again and kisses her cheek. “I need to have new smallclothes brought to me, and then we’ll go back.”

Lyaella looks down at once, noting Dany’s bare ankles and feet this time; Dany hasn’t bothered putting her breeches or boots back on. When Lyaella meets her mother’s eyes again, her gaze is knowing. She strokes Dany’s cheek. “It’s okay,” she tells her gently— this time in childish Valyrian. “We all have accidents.”

Dany presses her lips together, but it’s not enough to stop her laughter. Luckily, Lyaella beams back. Daenerys starts to tell Lyaella that, no, she didn’t have an _accident_ in the way Lyaella assumes— the way Lyaella had when she was first learning to use the chamberpot— but decides against it. She’s very thankful that she and Jon largely speak of private matters in Valyrian; Lyaella picked up on that habit and largely does the same, which greatly cuts down on her ability to blab embarrassing things to anyone she comes across. Even if Lyaella goes into the small council room and matter-of-factly informs them that they’re late to return because _Muver_ had an accident, only the ones with some Valyrian will understand.

Dany sends for a handmaiden, and after she returns with clean smallclothes, she redresses fully.

“All better,” Lyaella declares, smiling. 

“Yes, all better. We’re ready to go back now.”

Lyaella beams. “To Daddy!”

“Yes,” Daenerys affirms, her heart widening within her chest. She closes her eyes for a moment, the vision of the blood on her thighs swimming at the front of her mind. She wants nothing more than to go back to Jon, to hide in his arms and let herself cry. But she knows she’s very far from being able to do that. They won’t have a moment to themselves until tonight in their bedchambers. She’ll have to carry this alone all day. Just the thought makes her feel lonely; loneliness is something she hasn’t had to shoulder in such a long time. She’s not sure she remembers how to bear it. How does she distribute the weight on her frame? How does she walk beneath its heaviness?

Lyaella plays with her hair as they walk, twisting loose pieces around the braided parts, and before they step back into the council chamber, she hides her little face against Dany’s neck and says: “I love you, Mother.”

It’s truly _I wuv you, muver,_ and that makes it even more precious to Dany. She stops walking entirely. She shifts Lyaella so she’s held at the front of her body rather than at her hip. She hugs her warmly and presses a kiss to the crown of her head.

“I love _you_ , my dear heart,” she murmurs. She rests her cheek gently against Lyaella’s hair. The smell of her soap— mint and lavender— is more soothing than anything else in the world.

Lyaella reaches up, pressing her hand gently over Dany’s dagger scar. She still does it when they’re close, even though she’s weaned fully now. It’s still as sweet as it was when she was a tiny nursing babe.

“It’s okay,” Lyaella says softly, her thumb caressing over Dany’s scar. At those words, Dany’s heart lurches beneath her little hand.

“What’s okay?” she asks quietly. She feels exposed, as if her daughter is speaking straight into her own head, to the dark, lurking thoughts hidden there. Thoughts like: _I am failing my family. I am failing my house. I am failing my kingdom. I am failing myself. I am failing Jon. I can’t do it. I can’t do it._

“I don’t know,” Lyaella answers. “But Daddy said so.”

Dany hides her face against her daughter’s hair, her eyes shutting as she breathes through a heavy sigh. Jon reassured Lyaella about the potential budding plague, and Lyaella, Dany guesses, thinks Dany is upset about the same thing.

“He’s right. It’s all going to be okay,” she says. She lifts her face and gives Lyaella a reassuring smile. But does she believe that?

They’re still debating the benefits and consequences of canceling the tourney when Dany steps back into the council chamber. Lyaella goes back to the middle of the table and resumes making ‘paper flowers’; Dany feels Jon’s gaze, but she doesn’t meet his eyes, for fear that she’ll tear up and walk over to him. She doesn’t want anyone in this room being party to that. Not even Arya, who is so near to Daenerys that there is little she doesn’t know, little she isn’t part of. This, Daenerys feels, is private disappointment, private grief, something she’s ashamed of even if she knows she shouldn’t be— something she doesn’t want to share with anyone but Jon. She doesn’t want to feel anyone else’s love or hear anyone else’s comforting words but his.

Yet she and Jon won’t be alone for a long while now, longer than she thinks she can bear.

“We’ll set up guards, maesters, and healers at every entrance to the stadium— anyone who appears unwell will be escorted to the nearest sickhouse to be examined,” Jon finally decides. He looks across the table at Dany. When their eyes meet, she feels hers burn at once, and she looks down at her hands. “What do you think, Your Grace?”

She’s been silent since she returned. She has to remind herself: _I am Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the First of My Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, the Mother of Dragons, the Unburnt, the Breaker of Chains…I am the blood of the dragon, and I must be strong._

“I believe that’s the most sensible course of action at this point,” she says. She’s glad to find her voice sounds as even and clear as it did before she left. “Queen Yara and Arya are both right to say that three or four instances aren’t enough to send us into a panic, but Samwell and Sansa are also correct that this could potentially be something truly terrible— the first true trial of our rule, a devastation to our growth, and we should monitor it with great care. Let’s do as His Grace said and make the sickhouse closest to the stadium the one meant for those with fevers, and let’s also see if the Grand Maester might speak at the start of the tourney about best practices for preventing sickness.”

“What of the princess, Your Grace?” Ser Davos inquires.

Dany meets Jon’s eyes again. From the small frown that graces his mouth, she knows he hasn’t missed her sullenness, but now is not the time to give it any focus. They must decide what to do about Lyaella, how to keep her safe.

Dany and Jon look at Lyaella. She’s listening and watching intently now, having heard _the princess._ Her fingers fold absently at a bit of parchment as she looks from face to face curiously. A few curls pulled from her braid as she was ‘combing’ it in the privy; the silver spirals frame her face and make her gray eyes seem darker, stormier. Sometimes— like now— Dany thinks she can see plum at the edges of those storm clouds.

“It’s _her_ name day,” Jon finally says. He sounds deeply unhappy. “It’s unfair to keep her from the celebrations. If we’re having it, she should go. She’ll be seated with all of us; she won’t be close to others.”

“I won’t leave her here,” Daenerys agrees. “If she doesn’t go, I won’t be going, either.” _I won’t let myself become paranoid and lock her away like my father did to Viserys. I won’t do that to her. Even though I harbor plenty of anxiety, enough needed to make me that paranoid. I still won’t. Dragons shouldn’t be locked away, and neither should children. Nobody should be._

“Nor me,” Jon agrees at once.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone: she and Jon haven’t been parted from Lyaella for more than an hour or so at a time her entire life, and they aren’t going to start now. The only time she’s gone from their side for any significant length of time is at night when she’s sleeping in her bedchambers, a room connected to Jon and Dany’s, and even then, more often than not, she finds her way to their bed by dawn. Daenerys is certainly not going to leave her here in the Garden while she and Jon are all the way at the tournament stadium enjoying her name day without her.

“Well, that won’t work,” Tyrion says firmly. “We can’t have a tourney without the queen and king.”

“I have a suggestion, Your Graces,” Ser Davos says. Jon, Dany, and Lyaella look to him. He meets the princess’s eyes. “Princess Lyaella, what do you like about tourneys? Do you remember your last name day tourney?”

Lyaella thinks for a moment. Daenerys knows what she’s going to say before she says it.

“The music,” Lyaella says.

“Did you like the jousts? That’s when the men in armor rode horses and tried to knock each other off with long sticks.”

Lyaella slept in Dany’s arms during the jousts on her past name day. Daenerys remembers the soft weight of her head on her chest, the gentle rhythm of her contented breathing. She herself paid nearly no attention at all to them, too busy thinking about how lucky she was to be alive on that day, alive to see her baby greet her second name day, to have shared the past two years with her. Her daughter’s name day was her own day of death— but that never dampened the celebrations. If anything, it gave them even more reason for joy.

Lyaella considers Ser Davos’s question. Daenerys knows she has no recollection of any jousts since she’d been deeply asleep during them last year, but she nods, smiles, and says: “Yes, I like them,” anyway. Soft-hearted and kind to her very bones, there was no way Lyaella was going to answer any other way.

“She slept through them last year,” Jon tells Davos. “Are you suggesting she skip part of it?”

“Yes,” Ser Davos says. “I say we let her go to the parts she enjoys— the musical performances— but perhaps let her go to the Dragonpit during the other parts. That limits her exposure to others a good deal, and I’m sure she’d take no issue at all with spending time with the dragons instead.”

Lyaella lights up at once. “Now? Can we go now?”

“Later, perhaps,” Jon answers.

“It seems wrong to have the entire royal family absent during the tourney. Those taking part in the events have traveled a great way on House Targaryen’s behalf: it would be unjust to have them perform without your presence, Your Graces,” Tyrion persists.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Arya argues. “Lyaella gets to partake in the things she enjoys, but she’s not sitting in a crowd for hours.”

“I think this is all unnecessary,” Yara says bluntly. Daenerys and Jon turn to look directly at her. “I understand that Princess Lyaella is the future of House Targaryen, but there are risks every moment of every day in every corner of every place. Let the child go to the tourney. If she gets bored, one of her parents can take her elsewhere, and the other can remain, and that will satiate the performers and the people.”

More than anything else, Lyaella is _Lyaella_ : she’s Jon and Dany’s little daughter, queen of their hearts, the most precious thing alive. But Yara is right: she’s also the only future their house has; her existence is, in many ways, the longevity of their reign. _She’s probably the_ only _future our house will ever have,_ Dany thinks then. This time, when her heart crashes again, it makes her feel nauseated.

For selfish reasons, Daenerys wouldn’t mind staying in the Garden with Lyaella for the next three days. Her cramping is a persistent ache even if it’s mild, and she just wants to be alone. She wants to lay in her and Jon’s bed and nap with Lyaella, or listen to her chatter to Ghost, or read books with her. She doesn’t want to put on a queenly face and speak to thousands of people. She doesn’t want to sit in the stadium at all. For today, she’d like to be Dany, not Queen Daenerys. But her role as queen is not something she can just cast to the side whenever she wills it, and she can’t ask Jon to be the one to suffer through the entire tourney on House Targaryen’s behalf while she’s cuddling Lyaella. It wouldn’t be fair; he wouldn’t want to sit there without her and Lyaella anymore than she’d want to sit there without him. She knows she’s just got to be strong and push through her discomfort and the dark mood that has overtaken her.

“We’ll speak with the Maester and make a final decision from that conversation,” Daenerys decides. She’s tired of debating. She appreciates their input, but in the end, what Lyaella does or doesn’t do is her and Jon’s decision and theirs alone. She glances to Lord Tyrion. “What’s next to discuss?”

Lord Tyrion gently pulls a half-folded page of parchment from Lyaella. “Forgive me, Princess Lyaella. I need to borrow this for a moment.”

“Okay, Tyion,” Lyaella allows, unperturbed. She reaches for what looks like a map of the stadium and begins folding that instead.

“First item to discuss: Lord Hunter and Longbow Hall— he continues to resist the installment of a scholarhouse within their village…”

Throughout the rest of the council meeting, Daenerys forces herself to focus on her kingdom and her kingdom only. That is the only way she’s going to get through the day.

II.

Arya and Ser Davos accompany them to the Maester’s chambers.

“As long as the princess is sitting in the open air, there’s little reason to worry,” Maester Aethelwyne tells them. “Avoid enclosed spaces and avoid touching strangers. I’m going to speak with Lord Tyrion at once about changing the structure of the feast tonight so that no food is set out in the open. Grey Worm is gathering soldiers and healers alike so we can begin discussing the type of symptoms we’re looking out for at the stadium gates. I’ve been advising everyone to drink plenty of wine; the alcohol will help keep you well. For Princess Lyaella, three spoonfuls of herbed honey a day.”

She holds a glass jar full of honey out to them. Dispersed in the amber are various flakes from ground herbs. Daenerys takes the jar and inspects it.

“What herbs are in it?” Jon asks. They have to know exactly what goes into their daughter’s food and drink. The uncertainty of _not knowing_ was the hardest part of weaning. Daenerys misses knowing, without any doubt, that what Lyaella is consuming is entirely safe— and entirely in her control. 

“Echinacea, black elderberry, ginger, lemongrass, clove, and cinnamon.” She knows Jon and Dany well; she takes the jar from Daenerys, opens it, and reaches over onto one of her supply tables for a tiny copper spoon. She plunges it into the honey and removes it, promptly putting the spoon into her own mouth. “Perfectly safe. Tasty, I think. May I offer it to the princess?”

“I want some _,_ ” Lyaella says at once, her wide eyes on the jar. She seems to be entranced by the way the sunlight is shining through the glass, making the amber honey glow. Dany can see how it must look magical in Lyaella’s eyes.

“I will try it first,” Jon says. “And we’ll offer it to her later. Thank you, Maester.”

“Certainly, Your Grace. Here.” She passes him the open jar and a clean spoon. Jon takes both and scoops out as much of the honey as the spoon will hold. After he’s cleaned the spoon, he screws the lid back onto the jar.

“So what is the decision?” Ser Davos asks them.

Daenerys meets Jon’s eyes. His gaze is intent, but Dany is certain it’s not the dilemma with Lyaella he’s focused on.

“What do you think?” he asks her.

Daenerys looks down at Lyaella. She’s got her hand fisted around Ghost’s fur and her eyes still locked on the jar of honey, mesmerized.

“I think we should continue on as normal,” Daenerys decides, even though that’s not what she wants to say. She wants to say: _Let it go on without us. Let’s go back to our chambers. I don’t feel well, and I’m sad, and I don’t want to be with anybody but you and Lyaella._

But she is the queen. She must push through this as she pushes through every obstacle.

He hears her unspoken words anyway. He passes the jar to Ser Davos and steps closer to Dany, reaching for her hand. His eyes bore into hers as their fingers twine together; his eyes are drenched in concern and attentiveness.

“You don’t sound like you mean that.” Despite his low volume and his efforts at being discreet, Dany is certain everybody can still hear them anyway. Because of that, she holds herself back from honesty.

“It’s the best course of action,” she hedges. She leaves what _she_ wants out of it. It’s not about what she wants: it’s about what’s best for the kingdom, and her presence at the tourney is what’s best for the kingdom in this particular moment. “How do you feel about it?”

He studies her eyes, his searching so deeply and thoroughly that she averts her gaze, worried he’ll somehow sink right into her mind.

“I think something’s wrong,” he admits. It’s clear they’re not talking about Lyaella attending the tourney any longer. Before Daenerys can think of what to respond with, he tightens his hold on her hand and pulls her with him to the back of the chambers where they can’t be overheard as readily. Lyaella tries to follow them, but Arya scoops her up into her arms and flings her over her shoulder before she can. Her tinkling laughter fills the chambers.

“What is it?” Jon asks, his hand releasing hers and settling against her cheek instead. He’s only stroked her cheekbone twice when tears rise to Dany’s eyes; his affection is a balm as much as it’s a drain. “Dany…”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she murmurs, her voice hoarse with withheld tears. “Not until tonight.”

His eyes fill with pain as hers grow blurry with tears.

“Is it this day? Is it what Bran said about Lord Bloodraven?”

“No, it’s nothing to do with Lord Bloodraven,” Daenerys answers. She steps closer to him, bringing her body flush to his. She lays her head against his shoulder. His hand drops from her face as he reflexively pulls her in, hugging her close. “We’ll talk tonight. Now is not the time, and this is not the proper place.”

“Alright,” he relents uneasily. “Can I do anything to help?”

“You already are,” she tells him. His arms tighten around her in response. His kiss to her scalp sends warmth cascading down her spine. She clings to it. She stays inside his arms as long as she can—but that isn’t long enough; it isn’t long at all.

Lyaella dives for Jon’s arms as soon as her parents walk back over, their brief reprieve expired. Jon receives her with a smile.

“And are _you_ worried?” Arya asks the Maester. “Do _you_ think this is something serious?”

“I don’t know,” the maester answers honestly. She sounds politely curious more than worried. “I think it’s something to watch, but not something to fear. As soon as we should fear it, I’ll let the council know. Until then, I think we should all enjoy celebrating the day this blessing came into the world.”

She smiles at Lyaella. Lyaella smiles back shyly, twisting to hide her face against Jon’s neck. Everyone in the room smiles when they hear her soft, muffled giggling.

“You _are_ a blessing,” Daenerys tells Lyaella as they walk from the maester’s chambers. Lyaella’s idly playing with Jon’s hair; Daenerys catches her sweet hand and brings it to her lips to kiss. “You truly are.”

 _In every way._ Because she’s starting to believe that the witch who murdered Drogo and Rhaego was right: she must truly be infertile, and Lyaella must have been a divine intervention by the Lord of Light. A gift— a blessing.

The sooner she can accept that again, the sooner she can learn to cope with it. It wouldn’t be so difficult if Kinvara hadn’t told her about the other Targaryen babies she’d seen in the flames. She wouldn’t have been so…hopeful. But Kinvara did, and she had been. She had been incredibly hopeful. Thinking about it now, her eyes burn. She truly thought it would be as easy as the last time, that as soon as she and Jon decided they were ready to go through that journey a second time, she would get pregnant practically at the first try. But that was nearly half a year ago now that they decided they were ready for another, almost half a year of Jon spilling freely inside her again rather than withdrawing, and she has nothing to show for it. And she can’t help but feel choked with grief and shame. Though logically she knows it’s nothing she’s done wrong— though she knows Jon loves her regardless, that he loved her before he knew she could give him even _one_ child— though she knows that, in all honesty, she should just be happy she was able to have Lyaella— though she knows, without a single doubt, that her worth as a queen is tied up in so many things bigger than her ability to conceive or carry…still, in her heart, she feels like a failure. She knows it’s because _she_ wanted this so much ( _wants_ it so much.) More than anything, she’s let herself down.

It’s a hard feeling to contend with because it’s illogical and crafted in such deep-seated emotion that no amount of self-scolding will weaken it, no number of reassurances will discourage it, and no amount of kissing from Jon will quell it. There’s only one thing that will get rid of it for good, and she’s worried it’ll never happen.

III.

“Look! _Fawder!_ Look!”

It takes Jon a second. He looks down at his daughter, surprised.

“Did you just call me ‘Father’?” he asks her. She’s in his lap, but she might as well be a million leagues away: she’s so tuned into what’s happening in the stadium below that she ignores his question entirely. He turns and looks at Dany. “Did she say ‘Father’?”

“Yes,” Dany affirms. She reaches up and strokes Lyaella’s hair off her forehead, but Lyaella hardly notices. She’s too busy cooing over the knights’ horses as they wait to be mounted for the first joust. “I’m ‘Muver’.”

Jon’s heart does something strange, like it wants to sink and rise at the same time. The result is an echoing sort of sensation that makes him feel ultimately sad. ‘Mother’ and ‘Father’ seem too adult for their little girl, who still carries her baby blanket around with her and falls asleep listening to either his or Dany’s heartbeat every night. His little girl that is still so tiny and precious, still a _baby_ to him in every way.

“When did that start?”

“Yesterday. She said, ‘I’m three’, and when I said, ‘yes, you nearly are’, she said, ‘you’re not three, _Muver_ ’. Very astute of her.”

Jon laughs. It helps to ease his melancholy. _She’s only three,_ he reminds himself for the third time that day. It’s just hard when the past three years have flown by as quickly as they have. It seems cruel to him that the periods of unrest and pain in his life dragged on as long as they did, with every fortnight amounting to a year, when the period of his life he _wanted_ to slow to a crawl— the time spent with his baby in his arms— rushed past him in a blur of nighttime songs, council meetings, Flea Bottom walks, and dragon rides. Fatherhood brought more love and joy to him than anything else ever had, but it also brought moments like these: moments of deep, unexpected pain over things he never imagined could hurt him.

“I know,” Dany tells him suddenly, and when he glances at her, he sees a mirrored nostalgia in her eyes. “I felt the same way when I first heard _muver._ Just be glad it’s _fawder_ and not ‘father’. I may cry the day she looks at me and says ‘mother’ perfectly.”

He extracts one of his hands from Lyaella’s tight grip and reaches over to pull Dany to his side. He doesn’t care that they’re in the public eye: he’s got nothing to be ashamed of. He kisses the top of her head as she kisses his shoulder. Like all things, they share the weight of this.

“ _Fawder_ ,” Lyaella insists again, turning to look up at him. He meets her eyes, smiling softly at her look of wonder. “It’s a cow one!”

Jon’s smile widens. Lyaella is pointing at Ser Cree’s steed; it’s patterned like a dairy cow, white and black splotched. Dany laughs.

“That horse is very nice, Lyaella,” Jon agrees.

“Lovey,” she declares. “Where’s its ness?”

Jon assumes she’s asking because she’s making plans to go find that horse and pet it at a later date. He can’t help but grin at her determination.

“They don’t have nests like the dragons. They sleep in stables.”

Lyaella turns and looks back at him. She’s thinking hard about that, her light brows pursed over her dark eyes. “How?”

“They just…sleep. They walk in— it’s sort of like a crowded Dragonpit.”

“How in tables?”

“No,” Jon corrects, withholding his laughter. _“St_ ables. It’s different from _table_. You know the wooden building Alf goes into when Uncle Bran visits?”

Lyaella lights up at the mention of _Uncle Ban’s_ horse. It’s black as night; Lyaella called it ‘baby Dogon’ before finally learning to say _horse._ “Yes!”

“That’s a stable.”

She understands. “It’s his bed.”

“Yes,” Jon affirms.

“Can I see the cow one?” Lyaella asks.

“After the joust, I’m sure Ser Cree would love to let you see him.”

He feels Dany’s head fall to his shoulder. He glances down at the profile of her face, his concern quickly overriding his amusement with Lyaella. “Are you okay, Dany?”

She goes to sit up straight, but Jon tightens his arm around her shoulders, gently guiding her back down.

“No, I didn’t mean— you don’t have to sit up—

“I do,” she refutes. “It’s rude of me.”

“It’s not. They haven’t even started yet. Are you tired?”

“I just don’t feel well,” she admits. She relaxes against his body again.

Jon feels a strange mixture of terror and excitement. “Do you feel sick?”

Her eyes flutter closed. There’s a long pause before she answers.

“I just don’t feel well,” she repeats, in a hollow sort of voice.

He senses he’s made it worse somehow, though he’s not sure how. He reaches into her lap in apology and takes her hand in his. She twines her fingers with his and grips tight. He doesn’t let go; by the time the first joust begins, his hand is still there, her head is still on his shoulder, and neither seem to have any intention of moving.

For how excited Lyaella had been as the knights prepared for the joust, she’s doubly horrified when it actually begins. She watches Ser Cree’s opponent slam his lance into the ‘cow one’, causing it to stumble and fall whilst moaning in pain, and she clambers down from Jon’s lap, her big gray eyes filling with tears.

“No!” she cries. “Cow One!”

Seconds later, to Jon’s horror, she turns and begins hurrying down their row as quickly as her little legs will carry her. He has no idea where she thinks she’s going, but she’s got her tiny hands in fists, and she’s left her baby blanket on the ground.

Sansa snatches Lyaella up as she passes by her and Tyrion, stopping her from storming towards the stadium steps. Lyaella succumbs to tears immediately, sobbing into Sansa’s hair, and both Jon and Dany rise quickly.

“Bad! Bad! Bad!” Lyaella’s wailing, and when Dany lifts her into her arms, she only cries harder, deeply upset. “Bad! _He’s bad! Naudy! Naudy!”_

Jon rubs Lyaella’s back and peers down at the scene below: the ‘cow one’ is standing again, its leg bleeding where it was cut, and it’s about to meet Ser Cree’s blade. Before Jon can consider anything, he booms “STOP!”. His cry carries far enough that the message is received and relayed. The injured horse comes within seconds of being beheaded; Ser Cree stops at the other knight’s urging, glancing up towards the row the small council is occupying. Jon holds his hand up, signaling him to pause. Ser Cree nods.

“Take her elsewhere,” Jon urges Dany quietly. “I’ll…deal with things here.”

He’s not sure what that means, exactly. Ser Cree is well within his rights to kill a steed he feels failed him. But Jon cannot bear Lyaella’s horror, her pain. He doesn’t want her to hear the blade hit the horse’s neck, or look down to see its head on the ground. He just wants her to be happy again.

“I’ll take her to see the musicians,” Dany decides. She looks down at their daughter, gently nudging her chin up so Lyaella meets her eyes. “The cow one is okay. Do you want to go look at the harps?”

She nods, her lip trembling and her cheeks shining with tears. She rests her cheek sadly against Dany’s shoulder, and when Jon retrieves her blanket from the ground and passes it to her, she rubs it against her cheek, her eyes closing. Her outburst has exhausted her.

“Maybe even a rest,” Jon whispers to Dany. “Why don’t you both go take a break? You’re not feeling well, either. I’ll deal with things here.”

She hesitates. Jon can see the longing in her eyes— he knows that’s what she wants more than anything.

“Go,” he presses. “It’ll be perfectly fine. Right, Lord Tyrion?”

He looks at Daenerys’s Hand. _You’d better say yes,_ Jon thinks, and thankfully, Tyrion does.

“Perfectly fine, yes,” Tyrion agrees.

Dany touches Jon’s arm. He feels her gratitude and love flow from just that one touch: nothing needs to be said. He kisses her cheek and glances towards the other end of the row. Arya is already standing. He waits until Arya, Grey Worm, Red Fly, and Blue Rat have safely escorted Daenerys and Lyaella from the stadium, and then he starts towards the steps himself.

“Where are you going?” Sansa demands.

“I suppose I’m purchasing Ser Cree’s injured cow-horse.”

 _Fatherhood is strange,_ Jon thinks.

Three men from their Royalguard shadow him on his walk down into the arena, but Jon leaves them behind as he crosses towards the center, where the groaning horse and Ser Cree are. Ser Cree sinks into a bow at once.

“Your Grace,” he says. He has sweat shining on his forehead. “Please accept my apologies for upsetting the little princess on her name day. I had no intention of it, and I will do whatever I must do to right my wrong and…and…I am sorry, Your Grace, so truly, _deeply_ sorry.”

Jon realizes he’s afraid of him— petrified, really. He has no idea what his face shows; perhaps he appears furious, or perhaps Ser Cree just knows how deeply Queen Daenerys and King Jon cherish the princess.

“You did nothing wrong, Ser Cree,” Jon replies. “Your opponent broke the rules by striking your horse. That is no fault of yours.” Ser Cree straightens at that, visibly exhaling in relief. “Princess Lyaella is rather taken with this horse. She likes the way he’s colored. I know he’s injured, and I know it’s custom to kill them, but it looks to just be a cut; I’d like to take him to our stables and have him tended to. The queen and I will pay you so you can replace him.”

Ser Cree nods at once. He does a poor job masking his surprise. “Yes, Your Grace. Thank you, Your Grace. I’ll have it brought to your stables at once.”

Jon’s struck by sudden inspiration, a way to both avoid insulting the knights _and_ get out watching the afternoon’s remaining jousts.

“The princess is fonder of music and flowers than she is of jousts— the queen and I are going to take her to the gardens to cheer her up. Please tell the other knights that we greatly appreciate them traveling all this way, and that I regret missing their jousts. Invite them to dine with us at the feast tonight so we can hear all about what we’ve missed. And you are invited, as well.”

Ser Cree bows again. Jon wants to tell him to stop it. He hates the way people sometimes look when they bow at him: wide-eyed, obsequious, anxious. It’s unnecessary.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Ser Cree says again, and the sincerity drenching his words tells Jon he truly means it.

As Jon walks away, he feels thankful, too. Because now he can go to Dany.

IV.

Arya and Grey Worm are standing outside Jon and Dany’s bedchambers when Jon arrives.

“What are you doing here? I thought you had to be the Targaryen figurehead,” Arya greets.

“No. I found a different way. How’s Lyaella?”

Grey Worm frowns. “She cried the whole walk back. I’ve never seen her cry so long. Not since—” he stops, but it doesn’t matter. Jon and Arya were there at the time he’s thinking of. Jon can still hear her shrill shrieks on that boat. And sometimes, rising from the grips of a nightmare, he can still picture Dany’s bloody braid peeking out from underneath that bloodied blanket.

Remembering that only makes him more anxious to get back to Daenerys and Lyaella. He steps past Arya and Grey Worm and enters into his bedchambers, expecting to find Lyaella sobbing in Dany’s arms. But that’s not what he finds. Instead, they’re sitting across from each other on the floor, and Lyaella is presumably ‘instructing’ Dany on how to fold a paper ‘flower’.

“Like this?” Daenerys asks Lyaella, folding the corner of a bit of parchment down.

“No, Mamma. It’s okay. You can do it. Look,” Lyaella urges. She waits until her mother is watching her little hands, and then she folds the paper in the same exact way Daenerys just folded hers. “That.”

“Ohhh,” Daenerys says. As if that makes perfect sense— which it doesn’t. “I understand. Thank you for being so patient. Okay, what do I do next?”

Lyaella shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Of course you do! You’ve been folding flowers all morning. What do you do after this point?”

“I just do what my head says.”

“All right. What does it say to do now?”

“It’s shy right now. I don’t know. I’m sorry.” She spots Jon. He feels his heart rise to his throat at the look of pure joy that covers her face. She rises unsteadily to her feet at once, running over to him as quickly as she can. Jon hoists her into the air and swings her around, beaming at her overjoyed giggles. He’s so happy to find her _happy_ again; he presses kisses to her hair, her forehead, her nose, laughing with her as she squirms and giggles harder.

When her giggles pander off, she wraps her short arms around his neck and hugs him tight.

“Daddy,” she says happily.

He rocks her in his arms and kisses her head again. “Do you feel better, Ly?”

She looks up at him at once, her expression growing grave quickly. “Cow One. He is hurt.”

“He’s going to be just fine. The master of horse is tending to him right now.”

Lyaella reaches up, setting her hand against Jon’s cheek.

“In the sable?” she asks seriously.

“Yes, in the stable. With Uncle Bran’s horse.” Jon turns his eyes to the floor. “Are you teaching your mother how to make Prince Quentyn’s paper flowers?”

She ignores that question. It seems she’s still thinking of ‘Cow One’.

“He is a naudy boy,” she says, growing upset again. 

“Naughty? Who? Cow One?” Jon asks.

“No, he hit him with the stick!” Lyaella persists.

“Ser Wystan,” Jon realizes. “The other knight.”

She’s so upset she begins trembling with rage in his arms. “It’s _bad_. That was a bad boy!”

Jon starts to explain that horses often get injured during jousting, and that’s just the way of it, but he stops, realizing quickly that nothing he says will convince Lyaella that it was fair or right for ‘Cow One’ to be hurt. And maybe she’s right: it’s hard for him to see the world the way she does, but if he tries to see the world through her innocent eyes, he understands how she could view what she saw as _wrong_. In her eyes, ‘Cow One’ was an innocent, beautiful creature who was hurt for really no reason at all.

She hides her face into his neck again and sniffles. Jon walks with her, rubbing her back, meeting Dany’s soft gaze. Lyaella’s body gets heavier as she leans into her exhaustion.

“No more jousts for us,” Jon tells her, pressing another kiss to her hair. “We’ll go see the dragons instead of going back there, but first, I think you should rest.”

He halfway anticipates a protest, but he doesn’t get one. Lyaella reaches up to pull her fingers sleepily through his curls.

“Okay,” she yawns. “Can I have my moon song?”

 _You can have the whole world,_ he wants to tell her, _and you do._

He carries her through the open door connecting her bedchambers with theirs and sits on her bed with her. She makes no effort to let go of him and get underneath the covers. She’s waiting, and Jon knows what she’s waiting for.

“Dany?” he calls, right as Lyaella says: _Muver, come here, muver._

She’s fallen asleep with both of them at her side every night of her life— save the very first three. This nap is no exception. Dany joins them on the bed, and they curl up with Lyaella between them. She lays inside Dany’s arms, her little body cradled by her mother’s, and reaches for Dany’s hand, lifting it from the mattress. She slides down Dany’s arm enough that she can rest her cheek on Dany’s scarred palm. Once she has, she closes her eyes. When Jon begins singing, she lifts her ivory blanket and sleepily rubs the soft fabric against her other cheek, slipping quickly to sleep. He barely makes it halfway through her ‘moon song’ before her hand drops slowly from her cheek and her breathing evens.

Because she’s used Dany’s hand as a pillow, it seems unlikely that Dany will be able to sneak away without risking waking her; Jon is fine staying here, and when he meets his wife’s eyes, he can tell that she is, too. She appears exhausted, as if she hasn’t slept in days, but she _has._ He can’t understand it. Something has upset her, but if it’s not this day— if it’s not the memory of the things they went through three years ago— what could it be? They’ve been in brilliant sunshine since then; the hardest thing they’ve been through since Dany returned to them was Lyaella’s first sickness when she was nearly two, but even that only lasted a couple days, and Jon’s certain it wasn’t traumatizing enough to have her so upset about it over a year later. Nothing is going on right now that should have her this stressed. She told him she wasn’t that worried about the fevers yet, and everything else in their kingdom is more-or-less stable. They’ve received mild dissent from a few minor houses when it comes to establishing sickhouses or scholarhouses amongst their commonfolk populations— even though they’re being provided all the funding for it, all the materials, all the labor— but that’s nothing: they will conquer those tantrums easily. They have trustworthy leaders in place in all regions of Westeros. Even the Free Folk are integrating well; many chose to stay under Tormund’s leadership at Bear Island or the Dreadfort, though some chose to remain beyond the wall, and others chose to come further south. But those are all established changes; they’re not new things to stress over. And he’s certain nothing new could have happened within their kingdom so suddenly without him knowing about it.

 _Unless…it’s not about our kingdom,_ he thinks, and then, with a pang to his heart, he thinks he does understand, after all.

“Dany,” he whispers, and when her violet eyes meet his, he reaches over and sets his hand against her neck. He strokes her skin, his heart swelling with intertwined love and pain. “I thought we decided we weren’t going to worry about it.”

Her eyes grow wet quickly. He can sense the size of her sorrow: it’s choking her, he’s sure of it. It must’ve been choking her all day. And that makes his eyes burn and his throat narrow.

“It doesn’t matter what we decided. I am, anyway,” she finally answers. He feels her throat convulse under his hand as she swallows hard, but that does little to fight back her tears. Her voice is thick when she speaks next. “I think that witch was right. I think she was right, and Lyaella happened because of R’hllor, and I think I’ll never be able to give you another child or Lyaella a sibling, or House Targaryen another heir.”

It’s difficult not to interrupt her as all that rushes from her lips. Each sentence slams into Jon’s heart like a welding hammer into burning metal; by the end of her spiel, it’s sitting flattened near his toes, and he feels weighted with pain and fear. But it’s pain and fear for _her,_ not fear that the witch was right. He didn’t believe that then, and he still doesn’t now.

“It hasn’t even been that long. The maester said it can sometimes take up to a year or longer,” he reminds her, but she’s already shaking her head before he finishes.

“It happened the first time before. The _first_ time.”

She looks down at their sleeping daughter, and he does, too. In sleep, she’s even more ethereal; her silver curls glow like the moon, and her sweet features are relaxed in perfect serenity. It’s obvious to Jon that she’s something special— obvious to everyone, really.

“Lyaella was special. We know the Lord of Light _did_ intervene, at least in some ways. But that doesn’t mean the witch was right, and it doesn’t mean you can’t bear children.” It makes perfect sense to him, but Dany averts her eyes. He sees tears clinging to her light eyelashes. “Daenerys…” he doesn’t know what else to say. “I love you. It doesn’t matter—”

“It _does_ ,” she counters, her voice rising a bit. “It matters to me. Doesn’t it matter to you?”

He doesn’t respond straightaway because he’s not sure how to answer that. Does her happiness matter to him? More than anything. Does he feel his heart burst with tenderness and longing at the thought of holding another newborn daughter or son? Every time, always. Does he wish sometimes that Lyaella had a brother or a sister, someone to play with and grow alongside? Yes, ardently.

But does it change the way he loves her that she hasn’t conceived yet? Not at all. Does it matter to him that it’s taking more time than she thought it would? No— because truly, he wasn’t sure he was ready yet, anyway. She was, and he knew she wanted him to be, and in some ways he was: he was ready for another child, ready to grow their family. But he wasn’t ready for her to be pregnant again. He wasn’t ready for her to go through childbirth again. The thought, even now, fills him with anxiety and fear.

But how can he tell her that without it sounding as if he’s glad she’s having trouble? He’s not. He wants her to have whatever she wants, and she wants this. But the last time she birthed their child, he lost her. That’s not something he can easily forget.

“Your happiness matters to me,” he finally responds. “Your safety matters.”

Her eyes fall shut. She sees straight to the bottom of those words, to the depths lurking below them. “You said you were ready.”

“I am—”

“Then why are we talking about my safety? It’s perfectly safe for me to have another baby now. It’s been so long since Lyaella— too long.”

Lyaella stirs suddenly, perhaps because their voices have risen above whispers. They freeze and wait until she settles back down.

“‘Too long’? Gods, Dany, it feels like it just happened _yesterday_ ,” he hisses. He has only _just_ gotten to the point where seeing Dany’s hair in a single braid doesn’t deeply upset him, where the sight of a rowboat doesn’t make him nauseated. Where having her from his side for more than an hour or two doesn’t strangle his heart with anxiety. “Lyaella is still a baby.”

“She’s three today.”

“Still a baby,” he refutes quietly, stubbornly. His heart-rate increases at the sight of tears tumbling from her eyes, at the way her lips tremble. Her unhappiness frightens him. “It’s going to happen. We’ve just got to stop worrying about it…”

“How can I not worry?” she whispers. “How? How are _you_ not worrying? Don’t you want this, too?”

“I’m not worrying because I know it’s only a matter of time. And you know I do: you know I want another baby. But you also know how I feel about you going through childbirth again.”

“That’s how it works. We can’t have one without the other.”

“I know that,” he says patiently. “And I know, when you do get pregnant again, it’s going to be okay. But that won’t stop me from worrying.”

“And nothing is going to stop me from worrying now,” she admits. “Jon…I spent so long thinking I could never have children. And it hurt, but I had my dragons, and I was able to come to terms with it as well as I could. Sometimes it was hard…sometimes I wanted to cry because it was wrong. Unfair. Not only did I lose Rhaego, but I lost any chance of ever carrying a child again or holding one in my arms. It was, in some ways, double the loss. But I was okay…and then I met you, and I’ll never forget that day in the Dragonpit, that day you made me think that maybe— maybe— there was a chance I could bring a child into this world one day after all. And then Lyaella happened. And it was…unbelievably wonderful, and hard, and magical. All that talk about future babies from Kinvara…you even said R’hllor showed you our son. I had so much faith this time. Thinking that witch might have been right all along is harder now than it ever was. I keep feeling as if I’m failing our family, our house— you. I feel like I’m failing _you._ ”

“No,” he says at once, gruff. Her words make his eyes sear fiercely. He hates that she feels that way. He wonders if he’s done something to _make her_ feel that way. “No, Dany. I don’t feel that way at all.”

He slides his hand up so he’s cupping her cheek, horrified at the worries she’s been hoarding inside her heart all day. He leans over Lyaella slowly, careful not to disturb her, and he kisses the queen gently, his thumb stroking her cheekbone as he does.

“No,” he repeats again, his lips still pressed to hers. His voice is tremulous.

“My blood came again. This morning,” she whispers, and it takes Jon a second to realize she’s using that as evidence to why she thinks she’s failed him. The pieces slot together easily: her leaving the council chambers abruptly, her withdrawal, how pained she’d looked when he’d asked her if she was feeling sick. Her discomfort was, in truth, the opposite of the beginning discomfort of being with child; his question must’ve felt like a slap. He regrets it deeply.

“So we’ll try again,” he says calmly. _It’s just a matter of time,_ he thinks again. “Nothing is impossible for us, Dany. And I _know_ it’s going to work out. I saw him. And I know it was real. He had dark hair like me, and your eyes, and in the face he looked so much like—”

“I don’t want to hear about it,” she interrupts, her voice shaking. “I don’t want to.”

He remembers the way it had hurt him to see their son, how cruel it had felt at the time when he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Dany again— when he wasn’t sure it was possible for them to have another child ever again. He realizes suddenly that she feels that same way right now.

“Sorry,” he says honestly, his heart clenching. Because he understands. “I’m sorry. About all of it. I wish I could give you what you need.” _Is it my fault?_ he wonders, feeling sick at the very thought. _Have I let her down?_

He doesn’t know how she does it, but she reads that question in his eyes easily.

“It’s not your fault,” she says, in a tone that clearly conveys: _it’s_ my _fault._

“I don’t want you to be unhappy,” he whispers, and at those words, tears prick his eyes.

“I’m not unhappy, I’m just disappointed,” she admits. “I just…I want to be with you. I want to feel the way I’m feeling so I can work through it. I’ll be okay. I’ve gotten through worse before; I’ll get through this, too. I just want to be with you as I do.”

He wants that, too. Suddenly, she feels far away— too far. He edges carefully off the bed, circles it, and joins Dany on the other side so Lyaella is no longer between them. He tucks his body around hers and sets his arm over her hips, tugging her back gently so they’re pressed fully together. He presses his face into her neck and closes his eyes as he decorates her soft skin with kisses. The floral smell of her hair wraps around him, like the climbing roses twisted around the columns in the audience chamber. The scent is so comforting and familiar that it’s nearly intoxicating; he could stay here in her warmth and inhale it for hours.

He understands what she means about needing to feel what she’s feeling so that she can get through it, and he lets her. He holds her and kisses her, letting her air all her anxieties and guilt, no matter how unwarranted he thinks they may be. He listens. In some ways, they’re going through similar emotions, though their reasons are different: she’s fearful that she’ll never get pregnant again, and Jon is fearful for when she will. And she will: he’s certain of it.

When she’s said all she needs to say, and when Jon’s kissed her more times than he could hope to count, he whispers what he _knows._

“I’m going to get you pregnant again. I am, and probably soon,” he murmurs, his words warm against her collarbone. He moves the pink fabric of her dress to the side and kisses her bared shoulder. He’s already smiling into her skin as she laughs lightly, as he hoped she would.

“You’re _still_ not worried?” she asks him, her disbelief audible. 

“Not about that.” Of that, he’s certain.

“And when do you plan on doing this?” she asks lightly. He’s so glad to hear her somewhat-joking with him, so pleased to hear the tears drained from her words, that he has to move her sleeve further down and kiss her skin again.

“Hmm…” he muses. “The ninth day of the ninth moon should work fine. How is that for you?”

Her voice is dry, skeptical. “Six days from now.”

“Yes. Without a doubt.”

“You can’t know when I’ll become pregnant. We’ve had each other nearly every night for almost six moons now— if I didn’t become pregnant then, what makes the ninth day of the ninth moon any different?”

“It’s different because it’s different.” He leans his face over hers and kisses the corner of her mouth. “So don’t worry. I’m going to fix this.”

“On the ninth day of the ninth moon,” she repeats dryly. “That’s when our child will be made.”

“In six days, yes.”

“You can’t know that.”

“No,” Jon admits. This is the point he was trying to make. “I can’t. I can’t know the ninth day of the ninth moon is when we’ll finally conceive— just as _you_ can’t know that we won’t. We might. And for what it’s worth, Dany, I intend to give it my all on the ninth day of the ninth moon, and every time before and after that, as well.”

Now that he sees how deeply she wants this— how terribly she needs it— his own anxieties grow quieter. He had vowed to be with her, to take care of her, to rule alongside her, to make her happy. All of those are equally important.

Important, too, are the things he has learned. And one of them is this:

“When things don’t work out at first, it doesn’t mean they won’t _ever_ work out. It just means the time isn’t right yet.”

She holds his hand to her cheek. “I hope you’re right again.”

“I am. You’ll see,” he assures her. “We’ll have another soon.”

Another precious daughter like Lyaella, maybe, or even the son he saw in the flames. Either would fill their hearts with so much joy; Jon can already feel the warmth of it.

V.

After Lyaella wakes, they avoid the last few jousts and go to the Dragonpit instead.

To Lyaella’s deep disappointment, the dragons are gone when they arrive. They fly between King’s Landing and Dragonstone often now that the babies are grown enough to make the journey, and they come and go as they please. They’re large enough now that Dany and Jon could ride them, though they don’t. Jon has attempted to ride Storm once, but it was such a harrowing experience that he hasn’t tried again yet. Storm was overjoyed to finally have a rider of his own, but his excitement got the best of him, and he went wherever he wanted whenever he wanted with little care for where Jon was attempting to lead him. Were Drogon and Dany not in the sky to help herd Storm back to King’s Landing, Jon’s certain he would’ve ended up in Essos. And Storm would have undoubtedly found it hilarious.

Now, though, he’s certain he’d let Storm fly him to the ends of the known world if only Moonbloom would return. Jon’s heartsick at the sight of Lyaella’s tears, just as he’d been at the sight of Dany’s; he hates that his family spent most the day upset, and he _hates_ that he can’t do much to make it any better. He couldn’t fix the root of Dany’s sorrow. He couldn’t turn back time and prevent Cow One from being injured. And he can’t snap his fingers and make Moonbloom appear.

“They’ll be back soon, they always are,” Dany soothes Lyaella. She rubs her back consolingly as Lyaella sniffs, her eyes brimming with tears.

“I want Moonboom,” she says softly. It’s so pitiful that Jon has half a mind to climb to the top of the Dragonpit and shout for Moonbloom on the off-chance she’s close enough to hear him.

“I know. I’m sorry, dove. This isn’t the loveliest name day so far, is it?”

Lyaella hides her face into her mother’s breasts and shakes her head. Dany strokes her hair and looks up to meet Jon’s eyes. They share an identical frown.

They leave the Dragonpit after promising Lyaella they’ll return after the feast. They go to the Musician’s Square, and here, Lyaella’s name day is rescued by a harp player named Godwin. He dedicates a new song to her for her name day, ‘Moonglow Girl’, and teaches her how to play a few notes on his harp, something that has their little girl beaming ear-to-ear for over an hour. It’s all she can talk about as they walk towards the courtyard for the feast. She sits in Jon’s arms and chats nonstop with him and Dany about the harp, the song, the musicians, what she’d like her harp to look like, what sort of songs _she’d_ like to sing…on and on she goes, talking more than she’s ever talked in one conversation before, to the point that Jon’s certain she’s picked up at least twenty new words today alone.

“Rhaegar would love you so very much,” Dany tells Lyaella fondly. “My brother— well, your father’s father— had a beautiful silver harp. They say he loved playing it and singing more than anything.”

Lyaella looks up at Jon. “You sing, too, Daddy,” she says, smiling.

He smiles back at her. “Not half as well as him, I’m sure.”

Her eyes sparkle with wonder and excitement. “Is he going to my feast? With his hawp?”

Jon kisses Lyaella’s forehead. There’s no point dressing the ugly truth up in false jewels; it’s a truth she’ll have to face often.

“No, he can’t come to your name day feast. He’s dead and has been for a very long time now.”

She thinks about that for far longer than Jon thought she would. She’s contemplative as she looks up at the stars, her head resting on Jon’s shoulder. They’re nearly to the courtyard when she finally responds.

“Like Missandei,” she says. She doesn’t miss a sound when speaking Missandei’s name— she hears it so often from Grey Worm that it’s second-nature.

Jon glances at Dany from the corner of his eye. She’s smiling sadly at their daughter.

“Yes. And Lady Lyanna and Queen Rhaella, who you were named after. That’s your father’s mother and my mother,” she says.

They’ve told Lyaella all this before, but it means something different to her tonight. She really seems to comprehend it— at least in whatever ways she can. She’s been blessed to have no personal experiences with loss yet.

She looks over at Dany. Her fingers pull at Jon’s curls as she watches Dany and thinks.

“Mamma,” she finally asks. “Who is your _f_ _awder_? Davo?”

Jon can’t help it: he begins laughing, the question so endearing that it makes his heart swell within his chest. All he can do is laugh; smiling is insufficient. Lyaella looks up at him, seemingly confused by his response. 

“No,” Dany answers, her tone drenched in as much affection as Jon’s heart is. “Though I would be lucky if he was.”

“Then who?” Lyaella wonders.

Jon can tell it’s never occurred to her to wonder that before. She looks very concerned about it now, as if she’s trying to make sense of the empty spaces beside her parents, places where their own parents should be. For Lyaella, who has truly never had to live even a moment of her life without Jon and Dany’s love and support, it must be a strange thing to imagine two people without their own parents.

“My father is dead,” Dany answers.

Lyaella’s brow furrows. “Why? Him too?”

 _That’s not even the half of it,_ Jon wants to say, but this is well before he and Dany planned on telling Lyaella of all their losses, so he changes the topic back to harps. Soon, Lyaella’s alive with joy again. Her happiness only blooms wider when they arrive at the courtyard and she sees that her favorite people are already at their table: Arya and Gendry, Sansa and Tyrion, Yara and Prince Quentyn. Grey Worm, Red Fly, Ser Davos, Ezhi, and Bran. She bounces happily from person to person, kissing them and receiving kisses in turn, telling each one of them all about the harp and her new song. Jon even hears her talking to Ser Davos about Rheagar, though she mistakenly calls him _Vhagar,_ which sets Arya off on a Visenya Targaryen spiel, much to Lyaella’s interest.

“She’s dead, too,” Lyaella says at the end of it, her voice matter-of-fact.

Arya frowns. “Well— yes…”

Lyaella nods. “I knew it.”

To Jon’s relief, Lyaella’s doesn’t mention her trauma with ‘Cow One’ or Moonbloom’s absence to anyone. As she continues chatting happily with their family and friends, Jon stupidly assumes she’s forgotten about both. She hasn’t.

His first indication of that comes with the knights’ arrival. Lyaella stops mid-laughter at the sight of them, twisting in Grey Worm’s arms to watch them approach their table. Her gaze is focused— so focused that both Jon and Dany turn to look where she’s looking, to try and see what she sees, but all Jon can spot are the approaching knights, and they don’t appear remarkable in any fashion.

They interest Lyaella, though. Lyaella squirms in Grey Worm’s arms until he sets her down, and then she bypasses her parents, her aunts, her ‘Davo’, and walks right up to Ser Cree’s jousting opponent, Ser Wystan, the one who had injured Cow One.

He kneels down and smiles kindly at Lyaella; Jon and Dany both walk over to stand on either side of her, only just beating Arya, Grey Worm, and Red Fly as they rise to do the same. Lyaella seems to be brimming with something as she studies Ser Wystan, and Jon realizes just a moment too late that it is _not_ excitement. Her rage outweighs any and all shyness she might’ve shown this stranger before. She points at him, her gray eyes narrowed.

“You are a _naudy boy_!” she bursts.

“Okay, time to go look at the stars,” Daenerys says quickly. “Let’s have a walk.” She hoists Lyaella up into her arms, but Lyaella twists, turning to face the knight again. He’s still kneeling, and he looks utterly baffled by Lyaella’s furious reception.

“ _Naudy_! A big naudy boy!” Lyaella persists furiously, roaring over Dany’s shoulder now. “You hit Cow One! Cow One is good! You made him _bleed_! He was not a naudy boy! You are a naudy boy! It’s bad to hit people, and dagons, and horses, and cats, and—and—”

She breaks off, too angry to continue. Still, it’s the most Jon’s ever heard Lyaella say at one time. He’s more stunned by that than her words, which don’t strictly shock him after the initial surprise wears off. His normally sweet daughter has decided she witnessed true injustice, and if she’s anything like her parents, her outrage will be hard to stifle.

“Forgive us, the princess is very fond of horses,” Jon says. “We’re just going to take her somewhere to calm down—”

“NO NAUDY BOYS CAN PAY! NO MORE!”

Jon grabs Dany’s elbow, pulling her and Lyaella away from the table. They walk until Lyaella seems less likely to turn around and scold the knight again. Dany looks down at their daughter, stunned.

“ _Lyaella_ ,” she says. Jon can’t tell whether her shock is positive or negative, perhaps because he hasn’t decided yet how _he_ feels.

Lyaella has clearly decided for herself. She’s got tears in her eyes.

“I am not naudy, Mamma. I’m good.”

Daenerys exchanges an incredulous look with Jon. He has no idea how to handle this.

“You’re not naughty, no,” Daenerys agrees. “But do you think it was kind to yell at a knight like that? He came all the way here for your name day tourney.”

“It’s not nice to cut legs,” Lyaella shoots back, but her lip trembles. Jon can tell she’s afraid that they’re angry with her. It’s not something she’s used to: he can count the number times that’s happened on one hand easily. And it’s never happened to Lyaella alone: any time he and Dany have had to correct her, it’s been with Moonbloom at her side, an equal partner in whatever mischievousness they’d just gotten into.

“No,” Daenerys agrees, her voice softening. “That’s not nice at all.”

She brings Lyaella’s head to her shoulder and holds her. She meets Jon’s eyes again; this time, they have to look away from each other, both their lips twitching up, laughter bubbling close to the surface. _It’s not funny…_ Jon scolds himself. But all the same time, Lyaella looking into a celebrated knight’s eyes and calling him a _big naudy boy_ made him want to laugh all the same. Especially considering Ser Wystan had, strictly speaking, cheated: it was against jousting rules to strike a horse outright.

“I understand how you feel, Lyaella,” Dany assures her. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m sure that knight was disqualified for breaking the rules. They’re not supposed to hurt each other’s horses on purpose. So that knight was already punished, and he’s never going to do it again.”

“He pomised you?”

Jon and Dany lock eyes again.

“…Yes,” they chorus.

“Nothing to worry about, Ly,” Jon affirms. “Next time, instead of screaming at the knight, let’s just ask him to apologize.”

Lyaella looks at Jon like he’s said something particularly confusing.

“He can’t do it nex-time. No more. He can’t, no more,” she corrects.

Dany arches an eyebrow at that.

“Is that so, Your Grace?” she asks their daughter.

Lyaella doesn’t relent. “He’s naudy. He can’t pay.”

While Daenerys lets Lyaella vent her frustration at the knight’s ‘naughtiness’, and attempts to explain to Lyaella that, while the knight was breaking the rules, horses often get injured in sport, Jon spots a white shadow approaching them. He’s not surprised at all: he’s certain Ghost sensed Lyaella’s sadness from wherever he was.

“Why don’t we go eat?” Jon suggests to Lyaella. “Ghost is coming, and I’m sure he’d love for you to sneak him food.”

Lyaella sniffs. She lifts her head from Dany’s shoulder and looks for Ghost. When she finds him, she smiles.

“I want to walk with Ghost,” she says.

She walks beside the direwolf as they journey back to their table, her hand fisted in his white fur. Ghost leads her past the people he doesn’t know, his hackles raising defensively, and then he sits by an open seat near the end of the table beside Arya and Gendry. Lyaella climbs up onto the chair, and Ghost lays down beside it, half his body hidden under the table. Jon and Dany sit at Lyaella’s left side. Jon sees that most everybody has arrived now: Lord Robin and Sam have joined the table. Jon briefly wishes Sam had brought Gilly and the kids along: Lyaella would’ve liked to have played with Meleesa. But little Meleesa is sensitive: she cries at loud sounds and hides from bright lights, and Sam had known she wouldn’t be comfortable at the tourney, so he left her home until a better-suited time to bring her for a visit.

“Feeling better, Lyaella?” Arya asks, clearly amused by her outburst. “I’ve never seen you so fierce.”

“He’s never doing it again,” Lyaella answers vaguely. It almost sounds threatening— or as threatening as a little one can sound, anyway.

“I think you’re right about that,” Gendry comments. “You know how to make a man feel bad about himself. I don’t think he’ll ever be naughty again.”

Lyaella doesn’t respond to that: she’s halfway under the table now, pushing entire rolls into Ghost’s open mouth. Ghost certainly doesn’t complain. After she feeds him nearly half a dozen, Jon gently pulls her back upright.

“Ghost has had enough,” he tells her. He takes the roll from her hand and bites into it himself. Lyaella smiles. “Why don’t you have some for yourself rather than just fattening Ghost up?”

He holds the roll out to her. She takes it from his hand and takes a tiny bite out of it. She eats perhaps two bites, her eyes roving around the table, taking in the various conversations flowing around her. She gets bored with the bread quickly and drops it onto her plate, turning to listen intently to Arya and Gendry. She doesn’t say much until Gendry leans in and kisses Arya, and then she leans forward, her own lips puckered. Arya offers Lyaella her cheek, and Lyaella kisses her, and then she waits for Gendry to do the same so she can kiss him, too.

“Jealous?” Gendry teases Lyaella. He tugs gently and playfully at one of her braids. Lyaella giggles at once, grabbing Gendry’s hand and hugging it. “You get to see her all the time.”

“No, I don’t,” Lyaella lies.

“You do so!” Gendry insists. “You live here with her! I have to travel nearly _two days_ to see her!”

Lyaella doesn’t seem to know what to say back to that. She compensates by climbing over Arya’s lap and sitting on Gendry’s knees, hugging him consolingly as if he’d admitted something truly devastating. He pats her back and meets Jon’s eyes.

“Where was _this_ Lyaella a quarter-hour ago?” he asks Jon.

“Overcome with righteous rage,” Jon answers. “That knight is lucky Moonbloom was elsewhere.”

Gendry winces. “Yes, she would’ve had an outburst of her own, wouldn’t she?”

Without a doubt, Jon is sure of it. Moonbloom and Lyaella are a precious pair, but as they’ve grown together, Jon and Dany have learned quickly that they can enable each other in ways both positive _and_ negative. They can be sweet: Lyaella and Moonbloom have their own games they play together— Lyaella tries to jump into Moonbloom’s smoke rings, she slides down Moonbloom’s tail, they “chase” each other— and they have great affection for one another. They’re equals: Lyaella never orders Moonbloom around, and Moonbloom never uses her massive size to control Lyaella. But they can also be a dangerous duo. Whenever Lyaella is in a rare mischievous mood, Moonbloom is a terrible asset. The most ridiculous instance was when Jon and Dany found thirty dried figs underneath Lyaella’s pillow; they realized, after some investigation, that Moonbloom was stealing them for Lyaella from various food tents and shops.

Thankfully, Lyaella isn’t a fussy child; she rarely succumbs to strops, and for the most part, she’s sweet and inquisitive. But on the rare occasion she’s in a terrible mood, Moonbloom is there to roar, stomp, hiss, and scream to back her up. It’s a miracle she wasn’t here today: Jon’s certain that Lyaella’s reprimand would’ve been much more intimidating, as Moonbloom would’ve been beside her in all her massive, blue-violet glory, hissing and roaring in the knight’s face. Jon’s thankful he _hadn’t_ been able to snap his fingers and make Moonbloom appear earlier in the evening.

Like always, Jon and Dany and their council wait until everyone else has been served to receive their own food. It takes a while, and even longer still, as Jon and Dany rise to toast Ser Vitus before eating. Afterwards, their food is bought to them, and Jon spends the majority of the first half of the meal trying to convince Lyaella that roasted duck is delicious. She takes a tiny bite of the piece Jon offers her, but he feels as if she’s merely humoring him, and soon she’s ignoring all other food on her plate but the dried figs and sweet cream.

“Our daughter is going to wither away to nothing,” Jon complains to Dany.

She turns from Grey Worm and eyes Lyaella’s plate.

“Lyaella, dragons eat meat,” she says sternly. “And what are you?”

Lyaella bounces happily in her seat. “A Tawgawyen!”

“Correct. _And_ a dragon. And dragons eat…?”

“Meat,” she repeats, though she sounds less enthusiastic now. She points down at Ghost. “And I’m a woof.”

Jon hides his smirk into his goblet of wine. Daenerys is fighting her own smile back as she responds.

“Yes, a wolf, too. And what does _Ghost_ eat?”

Lyaella twists in her chair and pushes a dried fig into Ghost’s mouth. He accepts it, but as he chews, Jon sees his nose rise in disgust.

“Figs!” Lyaella answers happily.

“ _Meat,”_ Jon corrects. He reaches over and tickles her side; she giggles and squirms, turning to look up at him with sparkling eyes. “You’re being cheeky. You know Ghost eats meat. And you need to, too. At _least_ something more than figs and cream.”

She considers that. When she reaches towards her plate, Jon thinks she’s finally come around. But instead of eating the rest of the food on her plate, she pushes her plate over until it knocks against Jon’s, and then she climbs over into his lap. Jon’s heart softens so completely that it might as well be liquid in his chest. He kisses Lyaella’s hair and smiles as she leans back against his chest.

“Was your seat too far away?” he teases.

“Yes,” she answers seriously. She turns her head to the side, her ear pressed near the scar over his heart. He knows she’s tired from just that one head-turn; she falls asleep listening to his or Dany’s heart nightly.

Jon brushes her shining, moonlit curls off her face. “Are you tired?”

“No,” she lies. “I’m hungy.”

Jon reaches forward, careful not to jostle Lyaella too much, and pulls a piece of meat from his own plate. He offers it to Lyaella. She takes it and nibbles at it willingly enough, her head still resting over his heart and her eyes shut.

“This is why your Auntie Sansa accuses me of spoiling you rotten,” Jon tells Lyaella.

“Peoples can’t be rotten,” she replies. Jon smiles, and when she finishes the first piece of meat, he passes her another. As long as she’s eating, he doesn’t care where or how.

Daenerys makes no comment about the seating change, but her hand moves to his thigh. Jon sets his hand over hers; they entwine their fingers. Neither lets go, though Jon continues passing Lyaella bits of food with his other hand, and Daenerys continues chatting with Bran. Bits of their conversation drift to Jon, between louder bits of other conversations going on around them: Tyrion and Ser Davos are chortling with the knights at the other end of the table, Lord Robin, Yara, and Prince Quentyn seem to be debating who they think will sweep the floor at tomorrow’s archery round, Sansa and Samwell are discussing Highgarden’s finances, and Arya, Gendry, Grey Worm, Red Fly, and Ezhi are taking bets on who at the royal table will consume the most alcohol tonight. Tyrion, it seems, is a popular choice.

Daenerys and Bran, though, talk quietly together, and Jon can tell from the brief bits he does pick up that their conversation is much more serious.

“— and you’re happy there? In Winterfell? Truly? If you’re not happy, just tell Jon and me and we’ll do whatever we can to help; you’re always welcome here—”

“Things are okay, Daenerys,” Bran reassures her. “Things feel the most _normal_ there: that’s the last place I was really me. And I’m not alone. Not really. Sansa’s there nearly half the year, and I see Meera all the time.”

“Why didn’t Meera come to the tourney? We invited her.”

“Her father’s ill. She stayed to…”

Sudden shouts of laughter from Arya’s end of the table drown out the rest of Bran’s words. Jon looks down at Lyaella: she’s still awake and gnawing on a bit of carrot, her tired eyes resting on her mother. Jon rubs her back.

“Do you want to go home now?” he asks her.

“No,” she answers. She looks up at Jon. “Can I see Cow One?”

“In the morning, I promise,” he tells her. “Right now, he’s being tended to. They’re making him better.”

“In the sable,” she remembers.

Jon’s smiling as he leans in and kisses her forehead. “Yes, good job.”

“I don’t like jouts,” she tells Jon. When he looks at her stormy eyes, he can tell part of her mind is still replaying what she witnessed earlier today.

“I know. We won’t go to them anymore. What shall we do instead?”

“Fly,” she answers at once. “I want to fly. On Moonboom.”

Jon passes her a bit of hard cheese once she’s finished her carrot. He strokes her hair idly as she eats, mulling over that wish.

“Soon,” he decides. “You’re still too little to go by yourself, and Mother wants you to be the first one to ride Moonbloom. Not us with you in tow— you.”

“Why? We all go on Dogon.”

“Yes, but your mother is his rider. We don’t go without her. And she was the first to ride him. You’ll be Moonbloom’s rider, like Mother with Drogon.”

“You and Storm,” Lyaella adds.

“One day, yes. Storm is young like Moonbloom. He’s learning.”

She chews a bite of cheese, thinking. “And he’s naudy.”

Jon laughs. “You’re very focused on who’s ‘good’ and who is ‘naughty’ today, aren’t you?”

“Storm took you so — he took you _faw_ — he didn’t stop! You said ‘stop!’ and he— he was naudy!”

She’s trying to retell the story of when Storm tried to kidnap Jon and take him to Essos, but either the story is far too exciting to her to get her words out calmly, or she doesn’t yet have the words needed to tell it with any more detail than that. Either way, it’s adorable, and Jon laughs softly. Lyaella joins in on his laughter.

“He’s just wild and stubborn. Not ‘naughty’. I suppose Mother and I call him naughty too much.”

“Moonboom’s good,” Lyaella says firmly.

“Of course,” Jon reassures her. “And you’re good.”

“You, too,” she tells him. She looks at Dany, and Jon looks also. Daenerys is laughing with Bran, Grey Worm, and Ezhi, and as he takes in the glow of her happiness and the candlelight shining in her hair, Jon finds every thought in his head gone but one: _she’s beautiful._ It’s nothing new, so he’s not sure why it hits him so fiercely, but her beauty is momentarily spellbinding. Jon feels his heart throb with longing.

“Mamma, too,” Lyaella says, her voice full of affection.

“Yes,” Jon agrees, his eyes still on the queen. “Mamma, too.” _Especially her._

VI.

Daenerys holds Lyaella securely in her arms as she sleeps. The feast went on far longer than Lyaella could, but that is fairly typical. They end this feast as they end most: with Lyaella’s cheek smushed over one of her parents’ hearts, one of her arms limp over their shoulder from playing with their hair as she drifted to sleep, her blanket clutched in her other arm.

The musicians always shift to playing lullabies when Lyaella drifts off, leading to quite a few guests growing sleepy themselves and retiring for the night around the same time. Daenerys is content more than tired, happy to hold her little daughter close and listen to the people she loves laugh and chat, the musicians’ sweet music filling the background. There is nothing better.

“We should get Tormund here,” Sam insists, knocking his shoulder against Jon’s. Jon smiles at him, and Tyrion is overtly generous as he pours more wine in Jon’s goblet.

“Are you trying to get the king drunk as you?” Sansa scolds.

“Drunk as you, perhaps,” Tyrion shoots back.

“I’m _not_ drunk!” Sansa protests, and then she hiccups. Arya howls with laughter, and Tyrion beams so brightly that the sight of it brings a smile to Dany’s face.

Tyrion turns to fill Daenerys’s untouched goblet next, but Daenerys lifts her hand off Lyaella’s warm back and holds it over her goblet.

“Live a little, Your Grace!” Tyrion complains. “You haven’t had any wine all night!”

“I’ve lived plenty,” Daenerys assures him quietly, mindful of her sleeping babe. “If you’re simply eager to serve me something, Lord Tyrion, I’ll take a cup of rose tea.”

Tyrion sighs, disappointed with her beverage choice, but he flags a server down and requests it all the same. Daenerys feels Jon’s gaze, and when she meets his eyes, she smiles genuinely at him. He beams back softly and relaxes.

“We _should_ get Tormund here,” Yara agrees. “We can have another feast.”

“You could bring Gilly and the children this time,” Jon suggests to Sam.

“If it’s quieter, perhaps. If the tourney is over,” Sam agrees.

Hoots and screams from the other side of the courtyard draw their attention. Daenerys watches with a furrowed brow as four drunken men either fight or dance with one another— she’s truly uncertain. Jon nods at a few guards stationed nearby, imploring them to investigate it, and they nod back.

Lyaella stirs, likely from the commotion coming from the drunken men, and Daenerys tries to lull her back to sleep by stroking her back, but she lifts her head and blinks sleepily, gazing around herself. She looks up at Dany afterwards. Her right cheek has creases pressed into it from Dany’s dress; Dany gently smooths her fingers over them, meeting Lyaella’s sleepy smile with a smile of her own.

“Are you ready to go home?”

Lyaella yawns. She rests her face back against her mother’s chest, but her eyes remain open. Dany winces as Lyaella’s sharp chin digs into her breast; she shifts her carefully.

“I want Moonboom,” Lyaella whispers sleepily.

Daenerys has forgotten they promised Lyaella they’d check the Dragonpit one more time before bed. If it were a regular day, she might convince Lyaella to put that off until morning. But it’s not a regular day: it’s Lyaella’s name day.

“We’ll check soon to see if she’s returned,” Dany says. She thinks it’s likely she has: Moonbloom has a way of sensing when Lyaella misses her, or perhaps she just misses Lyaella at the same time Lyaella misses her. Either way, Dany is fairly certain Moonbloom will be there when they check next.

Lyaella’s eyes close again. She plays with the ends of Dany’s hair as she starts to nod off again. Dany turns her focus back to the rest of the table’s conversation.

“What if we arrange it for shortly after the tourney ends?” Tyrion suggests. “Things should be calm then for Lady Melessa. The people will still be tired from the tourney.”

“We could do it a week or so from now,” Ser Davos says. “The ninth day of the ninth moon?”

Daenerys and Jon lock eyes at once. Jon makes a face, and Daenerys has to look down to keep from laughing. But they aren’t the only ones who’ve perked up at the mention of the ninth day of the ninth moon. Lyaella sits up in Daenerys’s lap, her eyes alight with curious recognition, and by the time Daenerys realizes her little daughter was not as asleep during her first nap of the day as she’d thought she was, Lyaella’s already speaking.

“That day is busy,” she tells the entire table. “ _Muver_ and _Fawder_ —”

Daenerys stands quickly and props Lyaella on her hip.

“—they have to get, they have to get, they are making—where are we going, Mamma?”

Daenerys is walking her away from the table.

“To see if the dragons are back,” Dany answers, and thankfully, that changes the path of Lyaella’s thoughts entirely. She looks back at the king. “Jon?”

He gives his parting words to the people at their table and then joins Dany and Lyaella. His cheeks are slightly pink, and once they’re far enough away, Dany begins laughing.

“Lyaella,” Jon says, clearly as surprised as Dany that she’d heard any of their earlier conversation. “What do you think is happening on the ninth day of the ninth moon?”

“You and Mamma, you have to, you are, you’re…” she’s struggling to explain what she heard, probably because she doesn’t understand it. “You’re making something.”

“We are? Like what?”

“A…paper flower,” Lyaella supplies.

Dany knows she’s picked the first thing she can think of that people ‘make’, not wanting to let Jon’s question go unanswered, but it still makes her laugh harder, amused. She hugs Lyaella close.

“You’re sweet,” Dany tells her. She nuzzles her nose against the crown of Lyaella’s head. “You’re the most perfect paper flower that was ever made.”

“I’m not a flower, I’m a dagon.”

“ _Zaldrīzes-zokla_ ,” Jon teases, and Lyaella giggles against Dany’s shoulder.

Dany knows her children well: when they arrive at the Dragonpit, the dragons are back, just as Dany sensed they’d be. They’re bombarded at once with scale-covered affection. Dany sets Lyaella down so she can hug Moonbloom’s leg, and then she wraps her own arms around Drogon’s neck. She peeks at the other three dragons as she strokes his scales. Storm is nuzzling Jon’s hair, Silverstar and Frostfire are sitting beside Moonbloom, waiting for the princess’s attention. All three younger dragons are unharmed and happy.

“Thank you for keeping them safe,” Dany tells Drogon. “I’m sure you had to rein them in often, didn’t you?”

Drogon rumbles low in his chest. The sound vibrates through Dany. He shuffles towards Jon right as Storm is shuffling towards Dany;she and Jon switch, stroking the scales of each respective dragon. Dany thumbs over a dent in one of Storm’s red scales, frowning. The scale has a stormy-grey outline— like all the scales on his neck and belly— and now boasts a deep crater in the middle of it.

“What did you do?” Dany asks Storm unhappily. She strokes her fingers over it gently. “Did someone shoot something at you?”

The thought fills her with fear. It’s difficult to fight back the memory of Rhaegal falling from the sky.

“Jon,” she says, growing upset the longer she looks at the dent. “Come look at this. Look at this scale.”

Jon drops his hand from Drogon’s snout and walks over, peering where Dany is pointing. He frowns, too.

“What happened there, Storm?” he asks the dragon. Storm makes a distinctly unhappy, groaning sort of noise. “Did you get into a scuffle with Drogon?”

Dany turns to Drogon and arches an eyebrow, but Drogon looks innocent enough.

“Maybe he…ran into something?” Jon suggests. “I don’t know.” He presses firmly over the scale and looks at Storm, gauging his reaction. “Does that hurt?”

If it does, Storm’s too proud to show it. He merely leans in and begins affectionately nuzzling Jon’s hair again, leaning so far into Jon with his large body that Jon nearly falls over. Dany can’t help but smile as Jon begins laughing. He pats Storm’s neck affectionately.

“All right, that’s enough,” he says.

Storm listens, but he stays close to Jon, his scales pressing against the side of Jon’s body.

“For such a stubborn thing, he really is very sweet,” Dany admits. She looks down at her daughter and her dragon; they’re both on the floor, Moonbloom turned over onto her back with her violet-scaled tummy in the air, Lyaella curled atop it. “And this one thinks she’s a…cat? Dog?”

She watches on with humored fondness as Moonbloom and Lyaella ‘wrestle’. Moonbloom is incredibly gentle with Lyaella, flinging her softly and carefully onto a pile of ash. Lyaella crawls onto Moonbloom’s back once Moonbloom rolls over, sitting atop her proudly, her eyes bright.

She looks at Dany.

“ _Please_ , Mamma? _Please, Muver_ , oh _please_ ,” she begs, and Dany knows what she’s asking. She walks up to them and sets her hand against Moonbloom’s blue scales.

“I’m sorry, Lyaella,” she tells her. “You’re just not old enough yet.”

Lyaella bends forward and hugs as much of Moonbloom as she can— which isn’t much. She looks even tinier atop Moonbloom, hardly big enough to stretch her arms from spike to spike to grip.

“Please, I’m fee, Mamma, please…”

Her words confuse Daenerys for a moment. “You’re free? Of course, we’re all free—”

“ _Fee!_ ” Lyaella insists, growing frustrated. “Today I am _fee_!”

 _Oh_ , Dany realizes. Her heart pangs on Lyaella’s behalf. She reaches up and grasps Lyaella, pulling her carefully from Moonbloom’s back. She cradles her in her arms like she’s an infant and kisses her nose.

“You’re _three_ ,” she says, and Lyaella nods, her eyes wide and pleading. “You’re right. You are three. But three is still too little.”

“Why?” she asks quietly, her eyes growing wet quickly.

Dany wipes a bit of jam from the corner of her lips with her thumb. “You’re so tiny that you would fall off. You’re not strong enough yet to hold on—”

“I am! I am stong!”

“Not strong _enough_. Not yet. But you will be.”

“When?”

When indeed? Dany tries to think of their ancestors. She tries to remember if she ever learned what age exactly they first mounted their dragons. She’s got _seven_ in her head, but she doesn’t know if that’s a true age or a random one she thought up.

“Six, maybe,” Daenerys decides. She sets her palm over Lyaella’s heart; her daughter knows that for what it is— a gesture of affection. “I’ve got a secret, Ly.”

“What?” Lyaella questions, curious at once.

“The more things you eat beyond just figs and sweet cream, the stronger you’ll be, and the sooner you’ll be able to ride Moonbloom,” she whispers.

Lyaella looks at her for a beat, and then she laughs.

“You’re funny,” she tells her mother, giggling. “Silly.”

“That was actually meant to be serious.”

Lyaella only laughs harder.

“Come on,” Dany says, tightening her hold on Lyaella. “Would you like to ride on Drogon before we go to bed?”

She lights up like the sun. It was never a true question because Dany’s always known the answer.

Moonbloom, Silverstar, Frostfire, and Storm fly alongside Drogon as they take to the skies. Jon sits behind Dany, and Lyaella sits between them, safe and snug between their bodies. She might not be ready to ride Moonbloom alone, but she’s already a skilled co-rider: she grips Dany tight right before Drogon turns or drops, anticipating his moves before he makes them, and she leans expertly when he twists through the air. Sometimes she likes Drogon to corkscrew through the night sky at breakneck speeds, but other times she likes to fly slowly and look at their kingdom below. Tonight she prefers the latter.

“That’s the sable,” she tells them, pointing down at the torches lining the entryway to the main stable.

“Yes,” Jon affirms. “That’s where Cow One is. We’ll see him tomorrow.”

“Can I go on Cow One?” she asks.

Dany turns back and meets Jon’s eyes. He inclines his head, almost as if to say _well, it’s safer than riding Moonbloom, at least._

“I suppose so,” Dany answers. “That should be okay, if Father or I hold onto you as Cow One trots. We’ll have to see how nice the horse is.”

“He’s _so nice_ ,” Lyaella tells them. Dany presses her lips together and looks forward, trying her best not to laugh.

They fly for a half-hour more, and then Jon asks Lyaella if there’s anywhere else she’d like to see before they go home. She requests the Memorial Garden set on Visenya’s Hill.

During the day, it’s lush and quiet; during the night, it’s alive with the flickering illumination of hundreds of candles that never go out. It’s an ongoing project of theirs, a fertile place where people can plant any flower, bush, tree, or vegetable of their choice in honor of someone they lost. They’re provided a stone plaque with the person’s name, a candle to light, and ideally, if they chose to have that person cremated, their ashes can be spread over the soil of that plant to help it grow.

So far, it’s home to a wide variety of memories: Dany first planted Dragon’s Breath for Missandei, a purpleheart tree for Jorah, and then she and Jon spent nearly a full week planting for the Targaryens and the Starks, taking great care to choose the right plant for each ancestor or loved one. Arya, Bran, and Sansa helped at the end of that week; Arya began crying while planting Ned Stark’s tree, and soon every Stark joined her. Dany knew it was probably the first time they’d all been able to truly grieve together. To her own surprise, she found herself getting teary while planting a lemon tree for Viserys. _He was awful to me in the end, and if he hadn’t been executed, he would have killed me and my unborn child,_ she told Sansa, _but before all that, he told me stories and he comforted me. He took care of me. He was my brother. The last brother I had. The only sibling I ever knew._ That thought tore her heart open and made her feel so lonely; the pain that gushed out of her torn heart was intense and unexpected. But as Sansa and Arya helped her finish packing soil around the lemon tree, she realized her words weren’t quite true, after all.

After they finished planting for the Targaryens and the Starks, Ser Davos planted quite a few of his own, the most stunning being a white gardenia bush on behalf of Princess Shireen of House Baratheon. Lord Tyrion planted for Myrcella Baratheon and Tommen Baratheon, and two more unnamed people he declined to leave a plaque for. Every time someone visited, more were added: an Ironwood tree for Theon Greyjoy, many trees and flowering bushes for those lost from House Martell, roses to honor those of House Tyrell.

The commonfolk get more use out of it than perhaps anyone, though: they come daily and plant in honor of someone lost. The Memorial Garden has been established for over a year now, and it’s so alive with life and fragrance that stepping into it during the day is like stepping into a perfumed maze. It’s one of Princess Lyaella’s favorite places, and Dany’s, too.

They hover above it now, eyeing the flickering of the protected candles set upon each plaque. At the base of Visenya’s Hill, the newly-constructed Red Temple looms, the torches upon the exterior walls casting a glow over the red bricks that nearly makes the entire thing appear to be burning.

“It’s floor stars,” Lyaella tells them dreamily.

It does indeed appear that the ground is sprinkled with stars. Lyaella rests her cheek against Dany’s back as she looks at it, the curve of her smile easy to feel.

She sleeps against her back the entire ride back to the Dragonpit.

VII.

After they bathe Lyaella, administer the maester’s herbed honey to her, and put her to bed in her chambers, Jon pulls Dany down onto their bed.

He’s wanted to kiss her since the last time he stopped kissing her, and kiss her he does. She twines her legs with his and holds his face in her hands, smiling each time his lips leave hers in favor of her neck or her shoulder, his hands pushing beneath her dress to caress her skin. He truly cares little about her moon blood and would gladly make love to her right then and there, but Lyaella’s only just drifted off in the room just outside of theirs, and she’s been known to ‘false-sleep’ (as she apparently had that afternoon). So Jon kisses and caresses Daenerys instead, happy to be with her in any way that he can, happy to see _her_ happy.

“You’re feeling better,” he comments, not asks, because he can tell. Her body is relaxed beneath his, her lips are curved up in a smile, and he can’t sense that heaviness weighing her down anymore.

He frees her mouth and moves his lips to her throat instead, and she uses that time to reply.

“Being with you and talking about it helped,” she says.

“So you believe me?”

“I believe you’re going to love me no matter what. And I believe that I can’t see the future. But you know a part of me is going to worry until it happens.”

He’s made progress down her body; he pulls the sleeve of her dress down far enough to press a kiss over her heart. The ridged texture of her scar is warm beneath his lips.

“I’d like to make it happen right now,” he admits.

She nudges at his chin until he brings his lips back to hers. She kisses him.

“It’s not possible right now— save your efforts.”

“I’ve got plenty of efforts. No need to save them up,” he quips.

She laughs at that, her nose scrunching up in a way that makes his heart jolt. She kisses him deeper, her hand dipping into his hair at the nape of his neck.

“Our little Master of Whisperers might not be asleep yet,” she murmurs. She trails her nails lightly over his scalp; he shivers. “I don’t even want to think about what sort of things she’ll tell the small council if she walks in on us now.”

Jon winces. “That’s a splendid point, Your Grace.” 

He brushes a loose piece of hair off her forehead, taking time to peer into her eyes, his thumb rubbing idly against her temple. In her gaze, he sees everything. He brings his lips back to hers and holds her close to his heart. He lets her set the pace, enjoying her touch and her kiss. Conversation is interspersed between each press of their lips to each other’s lips or each other’s skin, comments about their day or things that must be attended to tomorrow, things the other observed today that they want to share, thoughts on various ideas or plans that were made throughout the day. This is the best and only proper way to debrief after a long day. They’ve solved many problems in this same manner, in this same bed.

They finally separate a bit later for the sake of readying for bed, but Jon’s thoughts are never far from her. He’s thinking about her as he cleans his teeth and washes his face, he’s thinking of her as he changes out of his clothing, he’s thinking about her as he takes his customary seat in front of the fire. He sets a new log into the hearth and lights it. He’s so deep in his thoughts that he doesn’t hear Dany re-enter; when he glances back sometimes later, after the fire is roaring in the hearth, she’s in her nightdress with loose hair, sitting cross-legged on their bed. She’s got Prince Quentyn’s paper flower in one hand and a half-folded piece of parchment in her other. It takes Jon a second to realize she’s trying to puzzle out how Quentyn folded that flower, just as Lyaella had spent all morning doing.

“Has Lyaella convinced you to take up her new hobby?”

Dany looks up. She smiles. “No— though it is interesting, isn’t it? I wish I’d seen how this one was made.” She turns the paper flower over, eyeing the underside of it. She sets it on her lap a moment later. “Are you coming to bed?”

“Soon,” he promises. He likes to end the night by the fire. When he looks into the flames, he feels calm, relaxed— he feels known. And he’s got some questions for the Lord of Light tonight. “Do you want to join me?”

She slides off the bed, the paper flower still in hand. She joins him on the plush carpet. Jon wraps his arms around her, dragging her laughing into his lap. She loops her arms around his neck and kisses his beard; the crackling of the fire is such calming background noise that, when she kisses his lips, he loses himself in her kiss entirely. He’s not even sure how long it lasts. He would be fine with it lasting forever.

It puts him in the perfect mindset for looking into the fire. As he turns his gaze to it, he’s already so peaceful and relaxed that he hardly feels it when the flames begin to take over. The shape of the fireplace and the flames decompose, leaving only bright light masquerading as darkness. Jon can feel the warmth of Dany in his lap, but it feels far away, like remembering the feel of her in a memory. Moments later, he feels her draw closer, but it’s not her body leaning into his, it’s her mind sinking into the same flames, too.

They’re well-practiced in this by now; the conversation flows easily. He pictures the paper flower in Dany’s lap, the tears on her cheeks this morning during Lyaella’s nap. She thinks of blood, of the firm swell of her stomach when she was pregnant with Lyaella. Together, they relive their recent months of unrestrained lovemaking. The memories slip away— the bright light returns. Jon thinks: _She’s worried._ And Dany asks: _Do I have reason to be?_

The response comes in the form of memories— both ones that have already happened and ones that have not. They get to relive the night they made Lyaella for a bit, and then they’re taken forward— they see the swell of Daenerys’s stomach, but the room in the background of that memory is their current bedchambers in the Garden, not the Maidenvault. They hear the shrill cry of a newborn, intermingled with Lyaella’s singing, chiming clear and high through the air like bells. They see a glimpse of dark hair, a glimpse of silver— they think the same thought together: _No. I don’t want to see ahead. I don’t want to jump ahead. I want to live that fully when it happens. Just tell me: should we be worried?_

They’re treated to a verbal response. It’s rare that that happens. The voice is deep and clear, hard as iron. _Kingly,_ Jon thinks.

_It comes in threes. Three to heal, three to be. Fire and blood make life, remember. Fire and blood make growth, remember. Fire and blood make love, remember. You already have everything you seek._

His awareness dances with Dany’s. He thinks of the three-headed dragon on their sigil, the three heads of the dragon from the prophecy, Dany’s three dragons the first time he met her. Dany thinks of words from her past: _three fires must you light…one for life and one for death and one to love…three mounts must you ride…one to bed and one to dread and one to love…three treasons will you know…once for blood and once for gold and once for love…_

Together, they recount all three of Lyaella’s name days. Her first— her second— and today.

When the white-hot darkness recedes and the flames return, he turns and seeks Daenerys’s eyes. They’re soft as petals, hard as ice. He can still feel her mind leaning against his. It makes him shiver; there is no greater intimacy than that, no deeper touch or sweeter union. Her mind is like her eyes (soft as petals, hard as ice), an achingly tender touch to his core; if he tries to conceptualize it, all he can see is color: soothing violets and scorching reds. And beneath that, the briefest glimpses of grace: the margins of memories, hazy hints at her heaviest and heavenliest hours. All of it _her._ He wonders, briefly, what his mind feels like against hers: is it warm and yielding? Hard and steady? Is it snow-white and jet-black? Storm-grey and ruby-red? Under the colors, what does she see of him— feel of him? And does she love it, all of it, no matter the shaded corners and flaws? Does she love him as no one has before?

He hardly feels her physical touch; it’s no more unexpected than his own touch to his own skin might be. It just feels right that they should be against one another, touching one another, close to one another. Together. As she kisses him, he feels fire flood his veins, followed by one word, circling through his mind in sets of three. _Yes, yes, yes. I do._

He’s not sure where he stops and where she begins. He feels something poking his hand, and he breaks his lips from hers and looks down at their joined hands resting in her lap. His hand cradles hers, and hers cradles that paper flower. He looks at it— she looks at it, too. They draw in a jagged shared breath. Grey merges violet and violet merges grey. They tremble— yet they feel unshakable. He presses her down against the plush carpet, or she presses him, or they press each other. He’s never pulled at fabric so frantically— she’s never pulled at fabric so desperately. He’s every thought in her head, and she’s his.

He hardly notices when their minds finally drift and ease apart. The flames echo over her face, and she breathes with him, moves with him. When she tells him that she loves him, it comes in threes.


	2. At the Dune With the Dawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to those of you reading and sticking with this universe! 💕 Your comments make my day and I think you're very lovely 💜
> 
> Just a heads-up: I've changed the rating of this story to M due to a semi? kinda?-detailed sex scene in the second part of this chapter. It's the ninth day of the ninth moon 🕒

I.

Arya kisses Gendry goodbye as the first light of dawn seeps into the black horizon.

He stirs just enough to mumble: “Having a lie-in isn’t a crime, you know. Especially not on Storm’s End, m’lady.”

She flicks his nose at that, and when he smiles, she leans in and kisses him for a second time.

“If you call me that again, I’ll stay in my own bedchambers tonight.”

“On one of my last nights here? Your cruelty knows no bounds,” he yawns. He props his eyelids open enough to appraise her daywear. “Where’re you off to this morning?”

Arya slides to the edge of the bed and perches there, taking a moment to stretch her arms over her head. Her back makes a horrid popping noise. She takes that as proof she’s getting too soft. She’s spent too much time this week lazing around and not enough training.

“I made a promise to the princess, and it’s a _terrible_ crime to lie to royalty.”

Gendry rolls over with another yawn, burying his tired face into his pillow. His response is muffled.

“Is that what you tell yourself in place of admitting you spoil her dead rotten?”

“Maybe,” Arya allows, unashamed. “You do, too. You’d be hard-pressed to find a soul in the known world who doesn’t or wouldn’t, if they could.”

“Robert Baratheon, perhaps, if he were still living,” Gendry says. “I hear his vendetta against Targaryens was legendary.”

“Legendary? Are you giving him undue credit because he sired you? Call it what it was…weak, jealous, and cowardly.” Arya thinks for a moment of King Robert. Anytime she does, it’s always the memory of the night she was brought in front of him and Queen Cersei to answer for Nymeria biting Joffrey— when the king had sentenced Lady to die simply to avoid an argument with his evil wife. To Arya, he was an unimpressive man in every way possible, _un-kingly_ in every way. Especially in comparison to Jon, who is a true king. And a Targaryen. It tickles Arya sometimes to imagine how red-faced King Robert would get to see Jon now for who he truly is: Lyanna Stark’s son, a Targaryen king, one-hundred times the king Robert Baratheon himself was.

Yet, in some ways, Arya owes weak King Robert a debt. And as Arya slides back across the mattress and drapes herself momentarily over Gendry’s bare back— just long enough to kiss the nape of his neck— she’s deeply thankful that Gendry is his mother’s son and not his father’s. She’s thankful that King Robert made him, but even more thankful that Gendry has none of King Robert’s failings. Gendry is everything but unimpressive, everything but weak; his heart is as strong as his arms, as steady as his head.

“I think he probably only ever did one truly good thing his entire life,” Arya admits.

“Made me?” Arya can hear his smile.

“No,” Arya lies, dead-panned. “He was an accomplished hunter, I hear. I respect a good shot.” She sits back up and gives his blanket-covered bum a firm pat. “I’ll see you this afternoon.”

“Good luck with your dancing lessons. Hopefully the bruises will be minimum this time.”

“Ha,” Arya snorts, though she does typically leave the princess’s lessons with a bruise or two, simply because she can’t resist letting Lyaella get a few good whacks in each lesson. She wants her to feel successful. She’s _certain_ that if Lyaella keeps her interest in swordfighting as she grows and continues to feel confident in it, she’ll be formidable one day— a true warrior queen. Arya feels honored to help her become that. “I’ll do my best.”

She journeys down to the kitchens before heading towards Daenerys and Jon’s bedchambers. She chats with Shanae and Aleta as she eats a slice of warm bread, hoping to stave off hunger pangs until the morning meal, but she doesn’t stay long. She takes her moon tea with her and sips at it carefully as she walks towards Rhaella’s Fortress. It’s located in the heart of the Garden, encircled by a crown of a courtyard that smells sweet year-long. Music lives in the trickling stream that dances through the greenery, and Arya often takes her lunches here with Jon, Daenerys, and Lyaella at a stone table beneath the shade of resilient oak dressed in smokeberry vines. As she walks through the courtyard now, her tea bitter on the back of her tongue and the mug burning her palm, she fights the urge to sit on one of the stone benches and remain there ’til the Targaryens emerge for the day. It’s even lovelier in the quiet, in the dark: the moon shines upon the flowerbeds and pools, its radiance hardly deterred by the burnt orange sunrise peeking up at the horizon line, and the breeze rustles the leaves and flowers and sends sweetness through the air. But it’s a sweetness that makes Arya think of Daenerys, and soon, she misses her sister terribly.

She’s smiled at and greeted by various members of the Royalguard as she ventures into Rhaella’s Fortress. She travels down bare, stone corridors, decorated for function with simple torches lining the walls. When she steps into the Chamber of Three Lights, that simplicity gives way to resplendence. The round chamber has walls of crystal and glass in every color imaginable, and no matter the time of day, it glows. That morning, its shine is derived from the outside torches on the other side of the crystal and glass. The translucent walls glow darkly, drinking in the dim light in a muted fashion. The mosaics almost look alive underneath the low, flickering light, especially the light-colored eyes of the various people, dragons, and direwolves depicted. Yet during the daytime, the radiance in the chamber is opposite to the night’s quiet beauty. The sunlight bathes the room in colorful beams of light so bright you might as well be standing in a rainbow. No matter the time you’re there, it’s kaleidoscopic and hallowed; Arya’s never once set foot in it and not found herself stilling for just a moment in time to stand there and take it all in. It’s as beautiful as Lyaella’s smile, as graceful as the queen’s walk, as powerful as Jon’s shoulders. And Arya gets to see it every day. Interspersed between the luminous walls are entryways to various passages leading to different bedchambers, and Arya’s is one of them, the first on the left. This is where she calls home.

It’s the center passage she takes now. Red Fly is stationed outside the bedchamber door this morning. He smiles when he sees Arya.

“Good morning,” he says.

“Morning,” Arya says back. She touches her elbow with Red Fly’s, a joking gesture they stared whilst drunk that lingered long after they sobered up. “You can go early. They’ve already got fresh bread in the kitchens.”

“Thank you, I’m starving. I had no time for my midnight meal…we had an interesting night here.”

Arya arches an eyebrow, her heart sinking at once. “Interesting _how_? Why am I just now hearing about this? You know where I am if I’m not in my chambers, someone should have found me at once— interesting _how_ , Red Fly?”

“The little princess had a night terror,” Red Fly says. “The first one she’s ever had— or, at least, the first one that’s ever upset her badly enough that anyone knew she was having one. The way she screamed and shrieked…I thought King Jon was going to die of a stopped heart, and even Ser Davos came running from his own bedchambers with a sword drawn.”

Arya’s horrified. Nightmares are still a touchy subject with her, with the queen, with the king— she’s certain Daenerys and Jon were a wreck all night long. And she was giggling the night away with Gendry.

“I should’ve been here,” she says immediately, the guilt-ridden thought tumbling from her lips as soon as it crosses her mind. Her stomach’s gripped with nausea; suddenly, she has little interest in her tea. “Did she settle down?”

“Quickly enough, yeah. Ser Davos sent for warmed milk and honey, and things got quiet soon after that. I felt so sad for her. It was hard to see.”

It would’ve broken Arya’s heart clean in two— yet she’d rather suffer and _be here_ than be protected elsewhere. Things of this sort are precisely why she can’t yet agree to join Gendry at Storm’s End, no matter how much she loves him or enjoys his company, no matter how much she misses him when he goes back home. Her place is _here._ Her role is important; it goes beyond Commander of the Royalguard, it goes beyond the king’s sister, it goes beyond Daenerys’s closest friend. She can hardly explain her role to herself beyond the fact that she _fits_. She fits with them, belongs with them. With the Targaryens. She protects them, and they protect her, and she has a home with them. The truest home she’s had since she was a girl. And she let them down last night.

She enters the bedchambers quietly. It’s stiflingly hot— Arya’s overcome by a wall of heat at once, thanks to the fire left roaring in the hearth. Arya rarely lights a fire in her own bedchambers, finding no need for one due to the warm temperatures. If she wants to read after dark, an oil lamp is sufficient. Arya knows the queen and king commune with the Lord of Light with fire— Jon nearly every night— but she’s never seen it left burning throughout the night before. She assumes it has to do with Lyaella’s nightmare: maybe she wouldn’t settle without the light.

No matter the reason for it, the heat is excessive. Arya drains the last of her moon tea and sets the mug on the table in front of the fireplace. She glances towards the bed: all three Targaryens are damp with sweat, the coverlets pushed onto the floor, their sleep shifts sticking to their flushed skin. Arya has no idea how they’re even managing to sleep in this heat, but it can’t be good for them. She gets as close to the fire as she can stand, grabs the iron shovel, and dumps ash over the flames and embers until they’re choked and extinguished.

“Seven hells,” Arya mutters, sweat already rolling down her spine. She crosses over to the balcony doors and undoes the latch, throwing the double-doors wide to let the cool morning air in. She steps outside herself for a brief reprieve. After gulping down the cool air and fanning her tunic against her skin, she ventures back into the oven of their bedchambers. The princess looks peaceful enough now: she’s deeply asleep between her parents, her head pillowed on Jon’s chest. But Daenerys looks perturbed to Arya’s eye, her brow tense even in sleep, her lips turned down in a frown. Arya lies beside her on the bed as she’s done many, many times on many different mornings, but this time, she’s worried. She reaches out and touches her shoulder, damp and hot to the touch. Daenerys stirs at once, her breath catching and tumbling from her lips in a tired sigh. She doesn’t open her eyes, but she reaches up sleepily and catches Arya’s hand in hers. She threads their fingers.

“Arya,” she greets, her voice soft and sleep-slurred. She yawns soon after. Her fingers tighten around Arya’s, and for a minute or so, no one says anything. Arya’s just glad to be there with her, glad that something worse hadn’t happened last night, glad to see the three of them unharmed.

“It’s _hot_ ,” Daenerys finally mumbles, her brow furrowing in discomfort.

“You left the fire going,” Arya says quietly, mindful of Lyaella and Jon still sleeping on Daenerys’s other side. “I don’t know how you didn’t wake from the heat.”

Daenerys twists at once, glancing over at Lyaella in concern. She pulls her hand from Arya’s and reaches over, stroking Lyaella’s damp forehead. Lyaella turns and hides her face into Jon’s sweat-drenched sleep tunic, more pestered by her forehead being brushed than the temperature.

Daenerys sits up with the clear intention of leaving the bed, but then she eyes the opened doors and the extinguished fire, and she lays back down. She turns over onto her side and wedges her hand beneath her pillow, looking back at Arya.

“Thank you,” she says.

“It was either put it out or die of heat exhaustion. What happened with Lyaella last night?”

Daenerys looks back over at Lyaella and Jon for a moment, and then she scoots closer to Arya. They share the same pillow, their faces close and their voices low.

“It was horrible. She woke us screaming _—_ I’ve never been so afraid. We thought someone had hurt her, or something was really wrong with her…she was that hysterical. She’s _never_ —” Daenerys breaks off. She doesn’t have to finish. Arya knows Lyaella has never acted like that before.

“Then what?”

Her violet eyes fall shut. Her hand trembles as it stretches across the small space between them, taking Arya’s hand again. Arya holds tight.

“I picked her up and she was just…I thought she was in physical pain, and I kept asking her what hurt, and she just held me so tightly around the neck I genuinely couldn’t breathe, weeping and gasping— Jon had to pry her off. Then Red Fly lit the fire, and Ser Davos brought her some warm milk and honey, and she was able to sit with Jon and I and sip the milk and calm down, but she couldn’t really tell us what had upset her so much. Jon asked her if it was her dreams, and she said yes, but if it truly was, she couldn’t tell us what the dreams were about beyond repeating ‘ice circles’. At least, that’s what I _think_ she was saying— it was ‘ice circles’ or ‘eyes circles’ or…something. I don’t know. She insisted we leave the fire going, and I planned to put it out after she drifted off, but I’ve been so tired…it was my mistake.”

Arya and Daenerys ruminate on that for a while. Arya thinks of Lyaella’s little voice and tries to figure out what she could have meant to say rather than ‘ice circles’ or ‘eyes circles’, which don’t make sense, but she can’t come up with anything that sounds close to ‘circles’ that makes it any clearer.

“I’ve had nightmares that frightened me just as much,” Arya finally says. “They often didn’t make much sense to me the next morning. I’m sure she’ll be just fine when she wakes.”

“I’m certain she will, too. That’s not what worries me.”

Arya strokes the back of her hand with her thumb, understanding easily. “Everybody has nightmares. They don’t mean anything. It’s not like what you and Jon went through. It can’t be.”

She’s uneasy. “I know that…yet that’s where my mind went at once last night. I suppose it brought things to the surface for me. And for Jon, too. Bad memories and the like.”

It makes perfect sense. Had Arya been here to witness it, she’s certain she would’ve flashed back to all those horrible, tormented nights the queen suffered while pregnant with Lyaella. They were all still healing, and healing took time. Every type of it, from the bumpy scars on Daenerys’s palms to the emotional wounds that get reopened from time-to-time, sometimes at the oddest provocations.

“Do you think she’ll still want to ‘train’ this morning?” Arya wonders. “I can come back later.”

“I’m not certain, but I imagine she likely will. Stay, if you like, ’til she wakes. Then you can ask her.”

Arya folds easily. “All right,” she says, and as soon as she lets her eyes fall shut, a yawn works its way up her throat. She hadn’t realized she was so tired until just then. She drifts in and out of light sleep, her forehead eventually resting against Daenerys’s, her mind a strange tangle of conscious thoughts and half-dreams. _I need to give Bran the new arrows Gendry made him, I keep forgetting…I hope Lyaella doesn’t remember her nightmare, it’s better to forget…I was walking through the woods once in a nightmare…I was Nymeria…I smelled the earth— or maybe that’s moon tea I’m still smelling— no, I’m smelling the earth…I see the forest, the morning sky…I’m running, running, running…I’m Nymeria…where am I going? I’m going home…No, I am home, this is home…“I love you,” I said to Gendry, and I meant that…does he know I meant that?…I love him, but I must stay…I wish he could stay, too…I want my entire pack…my pack…I smell the earth, and I’m going home…I am home…_

“When did Arya get here?”

Jon’s voice rouses Arya, yanking her mind back to the surface. Daenerys turns her face towards Jon, causing Arya’s face to slip forward on the pillow until her forehead presses Daenerys’s shoulder instead.

“A little over an hour ago.”

“It’s _hot_ ,” Jon complains, his tone nearly identical to Daenerys’s when she’d said the same thing.

“My fault. I left the fire going all night. I fell asleep.”

“How are you feeling this morning? Better?”

“Yes,” Daenerys answers. Arya wonders what was wrong with her before. “I think it was in my head. My stomach’s fine now.”

“Hm,” Jon comments. He sounds momentarily skeptical, but he doesn’t challenge it. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. Lyaella’s peaceful.”

“A blessing. Let’s have her sleep as long as she’d like. After last night, she needs it.”

“Aye,” Jon agrees softy. “We all do.”

There’s a pause in which Arya sinks back into half-dreams, and Daenerys’s chin rests against the top of her head. Interwoven with her dreams, she hears the king and queen talking sleepily for ages, first about Lyaella’s strange nightmares, then about the things to attend to during the day. Talk of the quarantined sickhouse and its occupants brings Arya fully back to consciousness.

“How many more are there now?” she asks sleepily.

“Over a dozen,” Jon answers. He’s worried: Arya can tell. “Seven of them were dead by midnight. The remaining ones seem to be responding to the maesters’ treatments. The Conclave’s representatives are still there doing examinations.”

“What’s next?” Arya asks them. She’s hoping they’ve got another set of quick answers up their sleeves as they had at the start.

“We’re not sure. We’re hoping the Conclave has ideas.”

Arya doesn’t trust them; she doesn’t trust anything that remains from the previous reign. But they’ve exhausted their small council’s ideas. All their previous efforts surely contained the sickness better than non-action would have, but it hadn’t come close to preventing it entirely.

Arya sits, leaning back against the headboard. Daenerys is already doing the same, though Jon is still lying down, his heart a pillow for Lyaella. Arya is suddenly worried about so many things that she’s not sure how to disentangle them. She’s not certain what the root worry is. But as she looks at Daenerys’s upturned palm resting in her lap, at the thick scar intersecting it, she knows one thing: now is not the time for the queen to conceive, as Arya knows she and Jon are trying to do. Arya knows little about pregnancy, and just a bit more about childbirth, and all the things she learned she learned three years ago. But she knows that carrying and nurturing an entire life _must_ weaken one’s defenses to sickness. It’s a vulnerability, and they can’t have that. What if she were to get this sickness? Arya pushes the thought away as soon as it comes, her stomach twisting inside out. _No_ , she reminds herself firmly. _The Targaryens are safe from Death. You saw that yourself. No one will take them from you. Not Death or his many faces, nothing. They’re safe, and you’re safe loving them, and winter has come and winter has gone. Now it’s spring. And nothing dies in spring: spring is birth._

Though Arya learned that birth could also mean death. So her own reassurances aren’t as reassuring as she’d like them to be. 

“We’ve all got to stay healthy. That’s what’s most important,” she says.

And nothing is more important than keeping the princess well; that certainty only grows when she finally wakes and smothers them all in overjoyed kisses, as happy as she normally is, her bad night forgotten. As she and her mother go about readying for the day, Lyaella chatters nonstop. She chats on the way to the privy, she chats while she’s on the chamberpot, she chats in the bathing chamber as her mother cleans her teeth and washes her face. She doesn’t stop even when the royal seamstress, Annet, enters to dress her for the day; her words are muffled into green silk as Annet pulls her dress over her head, but that does little to draw forth silence. Arya and Daenerys are happy to chat with her about whatever she wants to talk about— which is mostly music, dragons, and horses— but what Arya really wants to do is ask Lyaella about her nightmare. She doesn’t, though, for risk of upsetting her, and Lyaella doesn’t mention it, either.

When Lyaella is clean and dressed, Arya sits with her and combs carefully through her pale curls as Daenerys bathes and Jon readies for the day.

“Do you want a braid?” Arya asks her.

“I want like Daddy,” Lyaella answers, and Arya smiles, amused.

“All right. ‘Like Daddy’ it is. That’s easier, anyway.”

She gathers the top layer of Lyaella’s hair and twists it in a quick bun at the back of her head. Lyaella slides off Arya’s lap when she’s done and steps to the other side of the bathing chamber, walking behind the divider in front of the tub to check on her mother.

“Don’t climb in,” Daenerys tells Lyaella. “Annet just dressed you and Auntie Arya just did your hair.”

“I want to baid _your_ hair,” Lyaella requests.

“Thank you, sweetling, but I haven’t washed it yet. Could you braid it later?”

“Yes,” Lyaella says eagerly. “I can, Mamma.”

“Thank you, my dear heart,” Daenerys says softly. Arya hears her kiss Lyaella, and then the sound of the water settling as she presumably lowers back down into the tub. “Are you hungry? I bet your father is. Go see if he’s dressed and wants to take you down for a meal.”

“Yes, _Muver_ ,” Lyaella says. She rounds the divider and heads towards the door separating the bathing chamber from the royal bedchambers. Arya follows after her to ensure she makes it to Jon safely. He’s ready for the day as Lyaella is; once he’s lifted her into his arms, Lyaella relays her mother’s orders perfectly.

“I can take her,” Arya offers. “We can go train right after.”

She knows how little Jon cares for being separated from the queen, and it seems unnecessary for him to be when she could just take the princess down for her meal. But Jon shakes his head.

“No, I’ll go with Lyaella,” he says. But because Arya knows Jon better than anyone in the world, she understands that what he’s _really_ saying is that he’d rather her stay here.

“Okay…” Arya says slowly, unable to mask her curiosity. “Why?”

“The queen requested it,” he answers shortly. He catches Lyaella’s little hand in his, pulling her fingers from his beard. He kisses her hand. “Ready, Lyaella?”

“You need to make your _beewd_ more little,” Lyaella tells Jon, her fingers going back to his beard. She plucks at it curiously.

“I do, do I?” Jon snorts. “Tell that to your mother.”

Lyaella’s expression furrows in confusion. “Muver doesn’t have a _beewd_.”

“No, I meant _Muver_ likes my beard like this.”

“Why?” Lyaella asks, and Arya can’t stop herself from howling with laughter at Lyaella’s honest befuddlement. 

“Ouch,” Arya says. “I think that’s her way of saying she doesn’t agree.”

Jon doesn’t appear too wounded. He’s looking at Lyaella with patient affection. “You don’t like Mother or I to change anything, do you?”

“Your beewd’s like _this_ ,” Lyaella insists, smoothing her palm over his beard, flattening some of it so it's at the length it’s usually at.

“I wonder what she’d do if you cut your hair,” Arya muses. “Or shaved your beard off entirely.”

“Execute me by dragonfire. Wait, are we speaking of Lyaella or Dany?” Jon shifts Lyaella over onto his other hip. “Ly, you can monitor next time I trim my beard, how’s that?”

She flattens her hand underneath his chin, her expression serious. “Okay, _Fawder._ ”

“Now, let’s go eat a delicious breakfast of eggs, ham steak—”

“Figs!”

“No! Eggs and ham steak…you’re _incorrigible_ …”

“ _Fiiiiiiiiiigs_!” Lyaella sings.

“ _Eeeeeeeeeggs!”_ Jon counters.

Arya can hear them playfully arguing over their morning meal the entire walk down the corridor. It fades as she steps back into the bathing chamber, where she’s greeted by humid, floral-scented air. She senses that Daenerys probably wants to talk to her alone about something, which would explain why Jon was so insistent that she stay here, and she’s pretty certain she knows what it is.

“Has Sansa put you up to this?” Arya demands. She walks over and sits in the chair beside the tub, narrowing her eyes at Dany’s violet ones when she looks over at her. “Because Sansa’s the _last_ person who should get to talk about people being secretive about the nature of their relationships— what _is_ going on between her and Lord Tyrion, anyway?”

Daenerys appears genuinely confused. She continues combing rose oil through her wet hair with her fingers, looking at Arya with slightly narrowed eyes as she does.

“Oh— am I meant to be interrogating you about Gendry right now?” she finally asks. “If so, I was not aware. That wasn’t in my plans for the morning.”

Arya’s surprised to hear that. “I thought…Jon made it seem like you wanted to talk to me alone about something. And Sansa’s been bothering me about Gendry for a fortnight now.”

“What you do or don’t do with Lord Gendry is your and Lord Gendry’s business,” Daenerys says simply. She lays her head back against the tub wall, letting the oil seep into her hair before she washes it. Her eyes close. “Though I do request that, when you know you’re planning to leave us, you give me time to come to terms with it.”

Had she not closed her eyes, Arya’s certain she’d see deep vulnerability there amongst the violet. It doesn’t matter: she hears it even if she can’t see it. She feels her own heart lurch in her chest; she reaches out, lifting Daenerys’s right hand from the rim of the tub. She takes it in hers and holds tightly. The queen’s face remains smooth and impassive, her beautiful features unmarred by pain, but Arya senses it lurking anyway.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says truthfully.

“One day you will.”

“Do you plan on making me?”

Daenerys opens her eyes at that. She pushes her fingers between Arya’s. “No.”

“Then who do you propose will make me leave?”

“You’ll choose to.”

“I believe _I_ am the expert on my own heart. It beats in _my_ chest, you see.”

Daenerys doesn’t respond to that. She closes her eyes again. And Arya’s not aware of the specifics of it, but she’s certain this vulnerability ties closely to another one yet to be voiced. She feels it; something is bothering Daenerys beyond Arya’s theorized departure from King’s Landing. And Arya thinks she might know what it is.

“Are you…?” Arya trails off, glancing meaningfully at the bath water where Daenerys’s stomach is. It’s flat, but that means little.

Daenerys’s lips twist into a grimace. Arya’s not sure what to make of it, and when she finally responds, it does little to provide any clarity.

“I’m frightened.”

It’s Arya’s job beyond all else to make her feel safe and protected— that’s what the commander of the guard does. But on matters such as this, Arya’s just as terrified as the queen.

“It’s so soon,” she blurts, her heart squeezing in panic. “And it’s a bad time with the sickness—”

“No,” Daenerys interrupts. A line appears between her eyebrows as she squeezes her eyes shut, pained. “I’m not. That’s not what I meant. I’m not frightened because I’m pregnant. I’m frightened because I don’t understand…” she stops her sentence short. “I’m not,” she repeats, and it almost seems to Arya like she’s trying to convince herself more than Arya.

“Well…that’s good that you’re not, if that’s true,” she finally says. “As I said: it’s a bad time for it.”

Daenerys sighs heavily. She slides down and inches further into the bath, nearly bringing the steaming water to her chin. “You’re worse than Jon.”

Arya’s unrepentant.

“When you were dead, you were just dead: Jon and I were the ones living in the aftermath of it,” Arya reminds her. And no amount of words could explain the horrible cruelty of that aftermath, the bleak severity of every moment. “It was a long three days for us. Longer for Jon than anybody; I’m surprised he’s even willing to try for another so soon. I thought it’d be half a decade before he could.”

Again, she gets the sense there’s something Daenerys wants to ask her. She waits, fidgeting impatiently. She casts her eyes out the window as she does, anxious to get outside in the rising sun and begin the day. But a patient, delicate hand is needed here, Arya can sense that.

Finally, Daenerys speaks. But her question is not at all what Arya was expecting.

“Has your moon blood ever…” she trails off, struggling to put her question into words. “False-started? Began and then just…”

Arya’s never spoken about her moon blood with anyone before. Not out of shame; it’s just something she gives little thought to, even since the very first time she saw it. Despite her disinterest in it, she takes the time to consider the queen’s question, though she doesn’t really understand it.

“How do you mean?”

She’s so low in the water now that it touches her lips as she speaks. “I thought my moon blood came the first day of the tourney. But I only saw blood on my smallclothes two times after that first time, and each time there was less blood than the first time. It was gone completely after two days, and nothing more has happened since then. It’s normally never like that. I’ve bled heavy since Lyaella, and it usually lasts at least a week…has yours ever been so light or changed so much?”

Arya thinks back as far as she can, trying her best to give Daenerys an honest, helpful answer. But she can’t recall experiencing that before. She’s not sure her body is the best body for the queen to be comparing hers to; she’s never been pregnant and never given birth, and anyway, she pays as little mind to her blood as she can while still managing it.

“I don’t think so,” she admits. The queen worries her bottom lip with her teeth. “We should ask Sansa. Or Maester Aethelwyne.”

“I did ask the maester. She said all I can do is wait, that only time will tell with any certainty what sort of blood it really was. She says, sometimes, that can happen at the very start.”

“The start of pregnancy,” Arya clarifies, to be sure they’re understanding each other.

Daenerys nods. And that possibility _should_ cheer her up: Arya knows she’s wanted this for a while now. So why does she look so scared?

“That’s…good, right? Have you told Jon?”

“Not really, though he must’ve noticed…” she trails off, likely saving Arya from having to hear things about their bedding habits that she doesn’t want to know. “I’m not sure what to tell him— if there’s anything _to_ tell him. Nothing’s really changed. I still don’t know anything, and I won’t for some time. I’m afraid to get my hopes up, and I don’t want to make him think that I am— and have him go through all the different emotions that’s going to cause— only to realize next moonturn that, no, I’m not. That’s cruel. For both of us.”

“I think he already thinks you are,” Arya admits, thinking then to his skeptical _hmm_ that morning. “And we both know he’d rather go through those emotions with you now than be kept in the dark.”

“I don’t keep anything from him, and I won’t start now. I just wish I knew for certain, for both his benefit and my own. What do you think?”

Arya’s surprised by that question.

“I don’t know. I’m no maester,” Arya admits. She thinks about the night Lyaella was pushed into the world, the steely resolve that had befallen the queen, the way she seemed to just _know_ what to do. “You know your body better than anyone else. And you should trust in that knowledge. You’ll know.”

That’s probably not the reassurance Daenerys is craving, but truthfully, the only person who can give her the reassurance she needs is herself.

“I also think that if you have even the _slightest_ suspicion that you might be, you should stay here in the Garden as much as you can,” Arya adds. “For your own sake as much as the baby’s.”

“We don’t know if there _is_ a baby,” Daenerys reminds her, her voice sharp. It seems to pain her to speak of as if it’s a certain thing, so Arya makes a note not to do that anymore.

“And for Lyaella’s sake,” Arya continues. “We must all pay close attention to the risk we put ourselves in because any risk we do ourselves, we do the princess. She’s around us every day, after all. If one of us gets sick, she likely will, too.”

They both think about that as Daenerys works soap into her hair. After she’s rinsed the suds out, she admits something that Arya already knows.

“I’m worried about this sickness, Arya.”

“I am, too. We all are. All we can do is what we’re doing now.”

“I’m afraid it won’t be good enough. I don’t want to become paranoid like my father— I don’t want to treat Lyaella like a prisoner out of fear of losing her. But every time we step out into our kingdom, I feel sick. She doesn’t understand why she can’t go to the scholarhouse for lessons anymore. When Jon and I try to explain why, she gets upset and asks ‘what about my friends?’. She’s got a point: what about the other children? We’re protecting our little girl, but who is protecting everyone else’s? I’m supposed to be protecting them. That’s a queen’s job. That’s my job. But how can I protect them from this?”

Arya doesn’t have the answer to that, either. She doesn’t feel like a very good friend or sister right then.

“You don’t have to protect them alone. You’ve got Jon,” Arya reminds her. “Even if he’s out of ideas, at least you two can carry the responsibility together.”

They are weak words in Arya’s self-assessment, placating and unhelpful. But they have a surprising effect on Daenerys. She relaxes, sinking further into the water, and the sigh she gives almost sounds like one of relief.

“That’s true,” she says, calm now. “That is true.”

Arya waits for her to get worried again, but it never comes.

“Really? That helped?” Arya asks, surprised. “I thought I was failing at cheering you up.”

“No. That was what I needed to hear. All of it was, actually,” she admits. “Truthfully, Arya, I feel very overwhelmed. It all comes back to that, I think. I feel such enormous pressure— pressure to give House Targaryen more heirs, pressure to secure the future while also fixing the past and building the present— and that’s not even considering all the specific stresses right now, like this sickness, and this week’s mess with the brothels and taxes, and Jon and I received word yesterday about two Red Priestesses in Essos who are burning people alive again and saying it’s the will of R’hllor, which it’s not, because Jon has spoken to R’hllor on multiple occasions, but Lord Tyrion has advised us not to mention that publicly because it’ll agitate things with the new High Septon who is decidedly unhappy that this Targaryen rule is following ‘the false Red God’, especially after we were married underneath the Seven, and everything seems to be boiling at the surface. But you’re right: I’m not in this alone. It’s not like it was in Essos. I’m not like I was. Not alone.”

 _Arya’s_ feeling overwhelmed after that spiel. She didn’t know about half those problems.

“Well, I’m glad it helped,” she says, relieved, though she still doesn’t see how it did. “Shall we go see whether Lyaella or Jon won the breakfast battle? It was eggs versus figs last I heard.”

“My bet is they ate both eggs _and_ figs, and now they’re either with Moonbloom or Cow One.”

Her bet is correct. She dries and dresses, and when they get to the Great Hall, the king and princess are nowhere to be found. They attempt to have breakfast with Grey Worm, Red Fly, Lord Tyrion, and Sansa, but Arya’s not really hungry and the queen hardly does more than pick at her plate, so they leave soon after. They find Jon and Lyaella on a riding path in the east courtyard, Jon walking alongside Cow One as Lyaella sits tall upon his back on a tiny saddle hand-made for her. Arya grins happily at the sight of her little brother on his own horse, waiting on Lyaella a few paces ahead.

“Seems Bran beat you to it,” Daenerys comments, smiling. “He’s already giving her lessons. Your dancing ones might have to wait. She looks pretty content.”

She does. Lyaella already rides her horse better than many noble ladies do. The Dothraki soldiers were particularly impressed by it, and ever since first seeing Lyaella tall and proud on Cow One’s back, they held an elevated amount of respect for the little princess.

She and the queen stop near the edge of the trail and watch Cow One gallop towards Bran, coming to a stop at his side as Lyaella gives an overly-enthusiastic tug to the reins. The horse seems as enthusiastic about following Lyaella’s commands as Lyaella is to give them; Arya is sure he’s just grateful for his new royal life. Leisurely trotting in the shade for a couple hours a day carrying a tiny child that often snuck to the stables to feed him plenty of apple slices must be far better than regularly getting lances thrust at him. The light, carefree way he trots tells Arya he’s quite happy with his new set up.

“She’s always so eager to learn,” Arya comments fondly, smiling as Lyaella nods obediently at every ‘tip’ Bran gives her. “She’s going to be a wonderful queen one day. She _will_ be the queen, won’t she? If you are carrying another…and it’s a boy…?”

Jon and Daenerys have clearly talked about this already: Daenerys’s response is immediate.

“Lyaella is next in line. She is our heir. Should she decide she doesn’t want to rule, it will fall to our next child. And if we have no more children for it to pass to, we will select an heir.”

Arya’s extremely pleased with that. In her own opinion, Lyaella was born a queen.

“Good,” Arya smiles.

“Though we’re hoping to have nieces and nephews by then.”

Arya grimaces at that comment. She’s aware of what Daenerys is truly saying: she’s saying that, should Lyaella decide not to sit on the throne, and should she and Jon not have any more children, they’d likely pass it on to Arya’s own child or maybe even Sansa’s— family. But all it does is make her feel rushed and cornered, as any talk of children or marriage always does. Her knee-jerk reaction is to deflect, and that’s what she does.

“You’ve already _got_ a nephew,” Arya reminds her, and she ducks at once, narrowly avoiding Daenerys’s fingers as they seek a particularly ticklish spot where her neck meets her shoulder. She’s laughing hysterically as she avoids the queen’s reprimands, as equally amused by her response as she is at her own jest.

“Aegon, do something with your aunt!” Arya complains, smacking the queen’s hands away. She has two soldiers bearing down her neck at once after that, but Daenerys sends them away with a wave of her hand, breathless with laughter by now. She manages to grasp Arya by the ear, which only makes Arya laugh harder. She looks up as Jon walks over, his arms crossed over his chest, visibly fighting back amusement.

“With pleasure. What would you have me do?” Jon asks smoothly, arching a brow.

That response is so unexpected that Arya stops pulling against Daenerys’s hold, which gives Daenerys the window to move her fingers to her neck. Arya squirms away, laughter spewing from her lips.

“Okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

“A wise person never makes an enemy of a queen,” Daenerys tsks, keeping a surprisingly strong grip on Arya as she continues tickling her. 

“I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again,” Arya gasps. She looks up at Jon. “Tell your Auntie Dany to—no! I’m sorry!”

“Tell her…?” Jon presses.

Arya’s doubled over with laughter now, growing lightheaded quickly. “Call her off! Call her off!”

“What? Sorry? Repeat?”

“Call—her—off!” Arya shouts, each word punctuation by equally-loud bellows of laughter.

“A little clearer, please, I just can’t hear you.”

“MAKE YOUR AUNT—!” laughter consumes the rest of her sentence. She can hardly breathe for how hard she’s laughing.

“ _Here_? In front of all the gods, our soldiers, and in broad daylight? All right.”

Daenerys is pulled away, and Arya’s able to press her hands to her knees and catch her breath. She recognizes that they’ve won when she peeks through the dark curtain of her hair and sees Jon smirking and the queen valiantly fighting back laughter.

“I miss when those comments would render you speechless,” Arya complains to Jon. “Now how am I meant to heckle you?”

“That’s a tough one, little sister. I’ll get back to you.”

The sound of hooves beating the dusty trail makes them turn back towards the road. Daenerys smiles. “Lyaella! You look so happy up there, come here— oh, slowly, whoa, Cow One!”

“Stop! Stop! _Keligon! Nakho!!”_ Lyaella cries happily, enthusiastically pulling the reins, not a hint of fear evident on her face. And there’s clearly no need for it: Cow One slows and stops smoothly enough a few steps from Arya, Jon, and Daenerys. Lyaella kisses his mane, pleased as can be. “So good,” she praises, petting his neck.

Daenerys pulls her from Cow One. As soon as Lyaella is propped on her mother’s hip, she reaches up and cradles her mother’s face in her hands, peering seriously into her eyes.

“ _Muver_ , I can go on Moonboom now.”

Daenerys and Jon share a look.

“Not yet,” Daenerys reminds Lyaella. She pulls her hands off her face and kisses her dirty palms. “You’ve only been three for six days. You’re still too little.”

Lyaella turns to look at Jon.

“Mother’s right,” Jon says.

Lyaella turns and looks at Arya.

“Father’s right that’s Mother’s right,” Arya says.

Lyaella rests her forehead against Daenerys’s shoulder. She heaves a depressed sigh. 

“I am a sad girl,” she tells them, and it’s so dramatic that Arya has to walk away quickly to keep from bursting into laughter again. Her stomach still aches from her laughter before, so even when she’s far enough away that her amusement might not offend Lyaella, she still resists the urge.

Their _sad girl_ is giggling by the time Arya walks back over, amused by something Jon’s said.

“All right, you pitiful thing,” Arya says, reaching for the princess. She dives for Arya’s arms readily enough. “Are you ready for dancing lessons?”

“Yay!!” Lyaella cheers. She hugs Arya’s neck tightly. “I _wuv_ you!”

Arya’s heart fills to the brim with warmth. She hugs Lyaella back. “I _wuv_ you, too,” she answers.

 _Who in the world doesn’t?_ she wants to ask. _Only pure evil could look at this little face and not feel overcome with love. And even pure evil might take a pause before declaring indifference._

Arya carries Lyaella back towards the castle, Jon and Daenerys only a couple paces behind. They’re talking quietly amongst themselves; Arya hopes Daenerys is telling Jon everything she told Arya earlier in the bathing chamber. She is careful to keep space between her and them to give them an opportunity to talk in private without Lyaella overhearing. Lyaella doesn’t seem to care, thankfully; she’s too busy daydreaming about their upcoming dancing lessons to notice her parents’ distance.

“Is Gendy dancing?” Lyaella asks hopefully.

“Gendry’s _watching,_ ” Arya corrects. “He makes the swords, I swing them.”

Lyaella lights up. “Can we go look?! _Please_ , Auntie Awa, _please_!” 

“To the blacksmith forges?”

“Yes, the pity fire-swords, _please_!”

“‘Pretty fire-swords’,” Arya repeats, amused. “Perhaps we can go see those. First we’ve got to go wheedle Gendry and Prince Quentyn out of the courtyard…Auntie Sansa never should’ve taught Gendry how to play Cyvasse…Prince Quentyn was due back in Dorne two days ago, but he stayed to finish his ‘tournament’ with Gendry. Isn’t that silly?”

“No, I want to pay!” Lyaella says happily. Only a breath or two later, she adds: “I want to make flowers with Tyn!”

“You just want to do everything, don’t you?” Arya sympathizes.

“Yes,” Lyaella answers. “And go on Moonboom.”

Arya looks down at her. She’s so precious and adorable that it’s difficult to do much more than melt when gazing into her soft, dark eyes, but now, Arya sees a fire burning there, a determination larger than life— and certainly larger than the little frame the princess is trapped in now. Arya understands her. She remembers what it was like to be a little lady, underestimated and frustrated with others’ limitations.

“It’s hard to be a little girl,” she tells Lyaella. She tucks a wayward curl behind Lyaella’s ear and presses a kiss to a tiny hairline scratch over her left eyebrow; she’s not sure what happened, but she guesses it occurred on Cow One. That scratch reminds Arya of the scar over Jon’s left eye, and paired with Lyaella’s ‘Like Daddy’ hair, she’s a tinier, fairer version of her father. Especially in the eyes. It fills Arya with even more tenderness.

“One day,” Arya continues, “you’ll be all grown up just like your mother, and you’ll get to make all your own choices. You can ride Moonbloom whenever you want, wherever you want.”

She’s enchanted by that idea. She looks at Arya hopefully, hanging onto every word.

“To _Naaf_?” she asks.

“Just as soon as they create a cure for butterfly fever.”

She tightens her arms around Arya’s neck and thinks. Arya assumes she’s daydreaming about all the places she’ll go on Moonbloom. She likes to imagine that Lyaella will be the sort of queen who would land her dragon and let a curious child join her, like Visenya. A queen who would use her power upon dragonback to protect others, like her mother.

Dreaming of all the beautiful places one could go on a dragon is a lovely thing to imagine, so Arya doesn’t understand when she hears Lyaella begin to sniffle. She looks down at her niece at once, an icy hand gripping her heart. Lyaella’s eyes are drowning in tears.

“What?” Arya demands at once, slowing to a halt. She shifts Lyaella in her arms and frowns. “What’s upset you?”

She looks genuinely sad now; Arya can sense her pain and fear.

“I don’t want to be big,” she tells Arya, her words shivering.

“You’re not yet, you’ve got many years until you are…”

Lyaella begins crying. Arya winces and looks behind them, meeting her parents’ eyes.

“I-If I-I’m b-b-big like M-Mamma and D-D-Daddy I won’t s-s-see them!”

“What? Why not?” Arya asks, baffled.

“T-They’ll b-b-be dead!”

“How old do you think they are right now?!”

Lyaella doesn’t answer, and when Jon and Daenerys step up on either side of them, she falls sobbing into Jon’s arms.

“What’s this?” Jon asks softly, surprised. He looks at Arya, and Arya just shrugs, frowning still.

“We were talking about when she was an adult and how she could ride Moonbloom whenever she wanted, and then she started crying and said she’ll never see you two when she’s an adult because you’ll be dead.”

Lyaella wails harder. Daenerys is the first to understand, and her understanding comes immediately.

“Oh, darling, adults still have parents. The only reason we don’t, and your aunts and uncles don’t, is because of war and other terrible things. Your father and I will be here for a very long time.”

“Plenty of adults have parents, like…” Jon trails off, visibly struggling to come up with anyone. Arya rushes to help, but after running through all the people Lyaella knows well, she’s unable to come up with anyone who still has a mother and a father. That’s sad enough on its own without Lyaella’s tears added on top of it.

“Drogon’s not little anymore and he’s still got me,” Daenerys finally says.

Arya’s not sure that’s going to work, but to her surprise, it does. Lyaella twists in Jon’s arms and reaches for her mother, and as soon as she’s in Daenerys’s arms, she hides her face into her neck and settles down.

“People can live to be _very_ old,” Jon reassures Lyaella. “ _Much_ older than Ser Davos. You can tell him I said that.”

Lyaella turns her face to the side and looks at Jon.

“When will you be old?” she asks, her voice nasally from her tears.

“Not for a long while yet,” Jon says. He strokes her hair. “You’ll know when I am. My hair will turn all gray and white and silver—”

“Oh no, Jon…” Daenerys sighs, and Lyaella starts crying all over again.

_“My mamma’s old!”_

“You silly thing, you have the same hair as me!” Daenerys says, exasperated. “This is just the hair Targaryens have! Look!”

She brings a piece of Lyaella’s hair forward, holding it in front of Lyaella’s eyes. Then she leans over so her own hair is hanging by it. Lyaella looks from the hair to her mother and back again.

“Daddy’s not—?!”

“Sometimes Targaryens can have dark hair,” Daenerys explains, halting Lyaella’s impending crisis before it begins.

Lyaella sniffs. “Why?”

“Because sometimes they marry people with dark hair, and then their babies also have dark hair. Your father’s father had hair like ours, and his mother had dark hair like his, and so he was born with hair like his mother, just like you were born with hair like your mother’s.”

“Why?”

“Because babies are made from a little bit of the mother and a little bit of the father.”

“Why?”

“That’s just how it works,” Daenerys says. She kisses Lyaella’s hair. “Are you okay now?”

Lyaella nods thoughtfully. She’s definitely not upset anymore; rather, something has intrigued her, and she thinks hard about it as they resume their walk. Finally, when they arrive at the western courtyard, Lyaella lifts her cheek from Daenerys’s shoulder.

“Mamma?” she asks. Daenerys looks at her. “Where do _buvers_ come from?”

“ _Buvers_?” Daenerys repeats quizzically, and then realization draws over her expression. “Brothers?”

Lyaella nods. Arya and Jon share a quick look, equally taken aback by Lyaella’s question, but none so much as Daenerys.

“Why do you ask that, Lyaella?” Daenerys questions.

Lyaella’s matter-of-fact. “My buver has night-hair.”

“Dark hair?” Jon clarifies, and Lyaella nods.

Lyaella’s comment hangs in the air for an uncomfortable amount of time. Jon and Daenerys appear to be having some sort of conversation solely through eye contact. Lyaella waits patiently.

“How do you…” Daenerys trails off, changing tactics. “Have you seen your brother? In the fire?”

Lyaella nods, unperturbed. “He’s my _fend_. He tells me it’s okay, it’s okay. He pays with me.”

Arya’s thoroughly uneasy, not the least bit comfortable with the Red God’s tricks as her own brother might be. Arya recognizes that they all owe him a great debt— first for bringing Jon back to life, then for bringing Daenerys back and allowing Jon not to burn to a crisp— but she _also_ remembers the trauma they experienced on that boat, and she remembers that the Red God let them go through that. She’s tried to talk to Jon about it before. She’s told him she has no interest in being a Cyvasse piece on a god’s board, and neither should he. But he told her it wasn’t like that, though he understood why she felt that way. That did little to change Arya’s assessment.

“How often do you see him in the flames?” Jon questions gently. Daenerys, it seems, is at a loss of how to respond to Lyaella’s previous words.

“I don’t know,” Lyaella answers.

“Did you see him last night?” Daenerys presses.

“Yes.”

“You saw your brother?”

“My buver and siser and we go on our dagons.”

It’s quiet. Arya’s the one who breaks the silence.

“That’s _a lot_ to drop on them,” Arya tells Lyaella, and Lyaella blinks at her.

“Was that what upset you so much last night? Your brother?” Daenerys asks suddenly. Her tone trembles at the edge of each word; Arya and Jon both look at her at once, concerned. “What did he do? Did he scare you? Or hurt you?”

Lyaella looks at Daenerys as if she’s just asked the most absurd question possible.

“ _Buver_ didn’t,” she tells them, and she almost sounds defensive on his behalf. “He said ‘it’s okay, it’s okay’, and we were with our siser, and the— the—” she stops. _Now_ she’s getting upset. “The ice circles—I wasn’t alone, Mamma.”

“You weren’t alone? What do you mean?”

Lyaella clings to Daenerys, the thought of the _ice circles_ frightening her even in broad daylight.

“I want them,” Lyaella says tearfully.

“The…ice circles?” Jon asks.

“No!” Lyaella cries, shaking her head. “Aemon and _Way._ ” She seems to have so much she wants to say, but she’s having a hard time articulating it. As in everything she does, she tries her hardest anyway. “They were there— I was scared— but then I have them— and we were on our dagons— I don’t want the ice circles with just _me_ , Mamma…in the night I was scared it was just me…”

Arya’s lost completely, and when she looks at Jon and Daenerys, they appear confused, too. But the pain she sees on their faces— particularly Daenerys’s— tells her they gathered from that what Arya gathered: Lyaella’s afraid that, in the future, she’ll be alone.

“Where do they come from?” Lyaella asks again, looking hopefully between her parents. “The fire?”

“No. Not the fire,” Daenerys answers. She cups the back of Lyaella’s head, right above her tiny silver bun, and cradles her face to her shoulder, holding her tight in her embrace. Lyaella melts into her. “You won’t be alone. Not ever.”

Lyaella doesn’t ask for any proof for that statement, but Jon provides some anyway.

“A Targaryen alone in the world is a terrible thing,” he tells Lyaella softly. He stands beside Daenerys and sets his hand on Lyaella’s back. “And we’re not making any space in our kingdom for terrible things.” 

Arya’s heart aches for Daenerys. She doesn’t even want to look at her, too afraid of what she’ll see shining in her vivid eyes. She doesn’t want her to hurt anymore than she wants Jon to hurt. She loves her— she loves them.

When they reach the courtyard and locate Gendry, Prince Quentyn, and Red Fly, Arya meets her brother’s eyes and holds his gaze.

“We’ve got Lyaella,” she tells him. “We’ll train with her and feed her lunch. You and Daenerys go.”

“Go where?”

Arya lifts her shoulders. “Wherever you want. Lyaella’s safe with me. You know she is.”

He and Daenerys both know that, but convincing Lyaella to let them leave without her is a bit more complicated. It takes Gendry offering to take her to the forges to convince her, but even when she’s sitting happily in Gendry’s arms, Arya sees the king and queen shooting worried looks back at her. She’s certain they won’t be away for more than an hour, but hopefully, within that hour, they can talk. That’s really what they need.

II.

She doesn’t need to talk to him.

There is nothing he doesn’t know. Every fear he had last night, she had it, too. Everything she’s questioned about her own body, he’s been witness to it. He had her plenty of times during the tourney— he would’ve noticed the absence of blood like it should’ve been, like it usually was. She doesn’t need to tell him there’s a possibility, and she doesn’t _want to._ Right now, there’s only one thing she wants, and she was promised it six days ago now. It’s the ninth day of the ninth moon, and if she isn’t already pregnant, she intends to end the day as such. He clearly feels the same: they don’t even make it past the Chamber of Three Lights before he pins her against the wall and brings his lips to hers.

“I need you,” she breathes against his lips, and when she feels him harden where they’re pressed together, she feels dizzy with desire. “Jon…”

She doesn’t know if he hears her; he’s deep in his own desire, his hands contending with the smooth, heavy silk of her wine-red dress. She’s leaning against the stained-glass, but she keeps sliding against it, slick and evasive in silk. She’s wishing she never wore it now, but it’s Jon’s favorite, something he reiterates now with both words and the needy way he’s pressing his body against hers.

“I love this dress on you,” he groans. He touches the exposed skin just above her hips where the triangular cut-outs of the dress act as windows to her body. She wants to scold him as he tries to work his hand through it, clearly deciding that’s easier than juggling the heavy weight of her skirts to reach beneath them, but she can’t find the energy to care right now: if he tears her dress, she’ll just have it repaired.

He manages to slide his hand through it and down over her abdomen, his fingers dipping into her smallclothes, but his forearm catches, the triangle too small to allow full access. Both he and Daenerys groan.

“Take it off,” she orders, the words bursting from her without prior consideration. She tries to think sensibly after that, but it’s nearly impossible: her body’s throbbing to such a degree that her brain feels drained of blood (of proper, working sense). She gives it a go anyway. “We should— we should go— we should go to our—” she stops as her dress is yanked up over her head and thrown carelessly to the side. The sight of it, a dark-red puddle on the floor, makes her heart pound and her stomach clench with hunger. _Damn it all,_ she thinks. _I’m the queen…I can do what I want…but I’m the queen…I shouldn’t…_

She trembles against him as she feels his hand glide up her inner thigh, the cool metal of his ring chilling her hot skin as he searches out the fabric of her smallclothes. His beard burns and scratches against the sensitive skin of her neck. The antipodal natures of those two sensations— the cold smoothness of his ring, the rough burn of his beard— draw forth a moan from the back of her throat, and that causes Jon to press her harder against the glass wall, his lips dropping down to her breast and his hand working beneath the last layer of silk separating his fingers from her heat. She shuts out every other sight and sensation but _him_ , retreating to her mind, where it’s hot and bright with pleasure. She still feels him hard against her, and it brings forth a desire so fierce it’s pure impatience.

“Take me to bed,” she demands. It’s beautiful here, standing in the rainbow of the sun, but she’d rather see him naked.

“Too far,” he groans, stubborn and unfairly good at what he’s doing to her body. She tugs halfheartedly at his hair, unsure herself what she’s trying to ask for. Their bedchambers? Access to his buckle? What? He responds to it, moving his hand up and bending his knees, and as the diametrical sensations switch locations— the cold touch of his ring presses her breast and the rough heat of his beard scratches her inner thighs— she can’t even remember where they are right now. She throws her head back without thought, knocking her head so hard into the multi-colored crystal behind her that it takes the breath from her, but she’s soon gasping it back into her lungs anyway. Inside a brief moment of lucidity, she thinks about telling him he’s being excessive— that she’s certainly not going to get pregnant this way— but he’s humming happily against her skin, and the vibrations rip through her body, crown to toes. She can’t find a complaint in the world.

And nothing is said, but he sets his hand so gently on her breast that she _knows_ he knows it’s tender. Nothing is said, but she hears a litany of vows anyway, and they blaze through her heart. She’s so engrossed with pleasure that she’s not sure where her delight comes from, whether it’s the deep reassurance of his hand to her swollen breast or _him_. Either way, she’s settled and seized, calmed and trembling— all things at once, and everything with him.

He’s right: their bedchambers _are_ too far. She can’t even wait a moment longer here where they stand. She tugs on his hair, demanding that his lips return to hers, and neither makes any move towards the corridor that winds to their bedchambers. She pushes and tugs at his doublet, wanting to feel his skin as he gets to feel hers, but it’s taking far too long, and she feels like she might explode out of her own skin. His hands join hers at his belt, fumbling and yanking, and they’re as frenzied as they were that night in front of the fire as they tear through the barriers of their clothing. And he’s as strong as he was the night Lyaella was born as he holds her up again, this time lifting her entirely and pressing her against the bright mosaic wall, his hands holding her just beneath her buttocks as her legs wrap loosely around his hips. _What’s on the other side of this glass?_ she wonders briefly, her thoughts scattering to the wind as he fills her. _The far side of the courtyard….the shaded part…?_

 _Who cares?_ She doesn’t. She holds tight to him, her arms looped around his neck, and gasps against his neck as he makes love to her. Behind her closed eyelids, she can see the glowing luminance of the Chamber of Three Lights, the prismatic brightness filling the circular room. _Three lights, and three truths. Here they are:_

_There’s sunlight—_

Jon groans as she meets his movements with equal fervor, his hands tightening around her thighs to the point she thinks his nails might be drawing blood, and she grips him tighter round the neck in an attempt to secure her purchase. She looks into his face, taking in his flushed cheeks, his parted lips; his eyes open as if he senses the touch of her gaze, and when his gray ones pour into hers, she can’t breathe for how powerfully her heart throbs and pounds. His breath hitches around a moan, and the sound of it bolts through Daenerys like flame. Their pleasure is hot and bright, sunlight at the apex of her thighs. Her eyes fall shut, and in the darkness, every sensation is louder.

_Moonlight—_

She presses her forehead against his shoulder, the color of darkness all she sees. They’re both quivering now, from pleasure and exhaustion, and Jon grows wilder, fiercer; she loves it, she loves it, she tells him so, over and over…she loves _him_ …she tells him so…loves him so…

He carries her away from the wall and flattens her to the stone bench in the center of the room, and that’s better— so much better— she tells him in Valyrian, in the Common Tongue— _yes, that’s good, I love it, I love it—_ she wraps her legs around him as if she can keep him inside her forever, here in this darkness, with brilliant pinpoints of pleasure lighting the corners of her vision…

_And firelight—_

There’s an inferno in her mind and in her body, and Jon feeds it with his own fire. Her body’s consumed with the blazing heat of pleasure, but it’s his words that fan the flames to the stars. She’s not even aware what language they’re in, but it doesn’t matter. _I love you, you’re mine, this is yours. Yours. Yours. Yours._ As he spills into her, she wonders if he sees the same light behind his eyes as she does, the same all-consuming brightness. 

He hasn’t even pulled from her when they hear approaching footsteps. She’s so boneless that she hardly feels more than a slight tug of anxiety at the seams of her thoughts.

“Come back later,” Jon orders, and beyond how gravely his voice is, he sounds remarkably composed. Especially considering how hard his heart is still pounding, how his body is still trembling, how damp his skin is with sweat. “We’re attending to something.”

Whoever it is— they have no way to know; they never came close enough to be seen— retreats away from the Chamber of Three Lights. The stone bench had been the most welcome place in the world a few minutes prior, but now, it’s hard and cold beneath Daenerys’s bones. But she doesn’t want him to pull from her, and she doesn’t want to move; she communicates that to him silently by pressing against the small of his back, imploring him to relax and stay with her. She wonders sometimes if their minds haven’t fused at the edges by now, some sort of effect from their nights looking into the fire together. He seems to need fewer words from her, and she from him. Their understanding is, at times, complete.

His weight atop her is close to smothering, but it makes her feel safe. His chest presses painfully against her tender breasts, but the pain is reassuring. He buries his face into her neck and kisses her, and she closes her eyes and pulls her fingers through his curls, enjoying the gradual slowing of their heartbeats and the pressure of his body atop hers. Inside such a safe moment, she lets herself hope.

“Ninth day of the ninth moon, and I’d like to do that nine more times,” he admits, his words hot against her neck.

Her heart trembles in her chest, a throb of affection. She presses her face into his hair and kisses his scalp.

“They’d organize a search if we stayed here all day.”

“I don’t care,” he responds gruffly. And maybe he doesn’t: Dany’s not certain either of them would’ve stopped had their visitor stumbled upon the chamber a minute earlier. But he cares about one thing, and Dany does, too: “But we told Lyaella we’d be back soon.”

“We did,” Daenerys agrees. She loathes moving, but they still need to clean up before going back to Arya and Lyaella. “Though this is all I’m going to think about all day.”

Jon groans against her collarbone. “Oh, Gods, Dany, don’t tell me that.”

“It’s true,” she admits, and it is. She strokes the nape of his neck. “I’ll be fit to burst by nightfall.”

“ _You’ll_ be fit to burst?” he demands, and she laughs. “If I haven’t put a baby in you by the end of the day, I might as well just go back to the Night’s Watch because clearly it’s not working.”

“ _It_ works just fine,” she murmurs.

To her deep delight, his cheeks warm at that comment. She nudges his chin up and kisses him deeply, her palms warmed by his beard. She loves that beard. She loves his lips, soft and full against hers. She loves his fingers, simultaneously nimble and strong. She loves every bit of him.

It’s absurd, but they can hardly keep their hands off each other as they tidy the Chamber of Three Lights and then their own appearances. Leaving the bathing chamber is excruciatingly difficult, but they manage it. They leave with their clothing hanging properly on their bodies and their skin clean. The only difference is Daenerys’s hair; her braids were pulled and frizzled so severely that she had no choice but to pull them down. Not wanting to recreate the intricacies of her previous hairstyle, she chose instead to weave it into a single braid and then twist that braid into a knot at the back of her head. She doesn’t think anyone will notice the difference.

As they walk from Rhaella’s Fortress, Dany finds her heart feels lighter than it has in months. She holds Jon’s hand, soaked with tenderness.

“Do you think…”

She trails off. She doesn’t have to finish.

“I do,” he answers. “I genuinely do, Dany. What do _you_ think?”

She doesn’t know. She’s afraid to trust any wave of exhaustion, any bout of nausea, any aching in her breasts. She’s afraid they’re delusions from a wishful mind. But Arya’s right: if anyone would know, it would be her. She’s been pregnant twice now. Time will tell. If she’s not already, she will be soon. She must be. She must.

“I feel like it’s going to be okay.”

“Mm,” he hums in agreement. She feels his gaze, and when she looks up to meet his eyes, her heart jolts at the sight of his smirk. It comes more often now than ever; she’d be a liar if she said it didn’t have a lot to do with how needy she’s been for him lately. His confidence and surety are more appealing than anything in the world, and with every day that passes, his surety seems to grow. He’s at home in his new skin— at home as King Jon of House Targaryen. And she’s never wanted him more.

“I suppose I _did_ do a good job, then.”

“You always do,” she admits. She turns her face to the side to hide her own smirk. “Except that one time.”

“What? When?”

“You know. That time.”

“What time was that?”

“You know…” she hedges, glancing back at him. She can’t keep the grin from her face. He gives her an exasperated look, and she’s laughing as he wraps his arms around her waist, stopping her and pulling her into him.

“You’re around Arya far too much. She’s got you taunting me.”

“I do a better job of it.”

“Mm, without a doubt,” he agrees. “But you don’t play fair.”

“You forget yourself, Lord Snow. I am a just woman.”

“King Jon,” he corrects, kissing her gently. She squirms closer to him at the correction. “Yes, you are that. And you’re also the fairest woman in the world.”

Though she has plenty of physical proof of how desirous he finds her, how beautiful, those words still bring soft heat to her cheeks. She strokes her hand down his chest as if she’s smoothing the black fabric of his doublet— an excuse to lower her eyes and appear unaffected.

“You don’t have to flatter me, I’ve already wedded and bedded you.”

“That’s not flattery. That’s truth.” He lifts her chin and kisses her a final time, and then he steps from her. “We need to go now or we never will.”

“ _That’s_ true, too,” she agrees.

As they step out into the daylight, she turns her face towards the light and weaves prayers through every thought.

III.

“I don’t see a way for it to work,” Lord Tyrion admits.

Sansa’s still studying the parchment. That was her first instinct, too, but she won’t declare something impossible until she’s had time to think through every possible option.

“If we raise port tariffs, even by ten percent?”

“On which ports?”

“All of them.”

“We risk upsetting lords already wary of House Targaryen. Prince Quentyn adores our queen, but even he has stated he’s unsure how long the crown’s ‘generosity’ can last, and I’m inclined to agree. We’re managing now, but all these new projects…” Lord Tyrion pushes the parchment aside, handing it over to Sansa completely. “And this sickness…” he trails off, troubled.

A sudden breeze nearly makes the parchment take flight; Sansa grabs it quickly, moving it into her lap. Lord Tyrion reclines on the blanket and turns his eyes to the sky. Sansa studies his forlorn expression, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

“You know,” she says, absently smoothing the creases on the parchment, “if we had a golden dragon for every time you pushed a parchment aside and said it’s _impossible_ before minutes later declaring you’ve found the answer, we wouldn’t have any struggles at all.”

Tyrion turns his face towards her. He smiles. “Perhaps no financial struggles, but we’d have plenty of other struggles to contend with. Like this business with the brothels…oh, when they finally find where His and Her Grace have got to, and they tell them about the man the City Watch arrested…they’ll be furious.” He looks at Sansa. “You might see your first dragonfire execution before you return to Winterfell.”

“Exciting,” she says dryly. “And by exciting, I mean barbaric. That’s one thing I cannot condone.”

It’s always the Hound she thinks of when she imagines death by fire. Picturing the damage to his face— the fear in his eyes at the sight of flames…it fills her with pity. It’s not a just way to take a life. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be swayed on that.

“It’s actually cleaner than your standard beheading,” Tyrion says lightly. “But I understand how you feel. I’d like to say it’s much more traumatizing to die by fire than decapitation, but then again, I’ve always imagined the other is traumatizing, too. Standing there, your head bowed and eyes shut, just waiting to hear the blade whistling through the air…if anticipation is the true torture, who’s to say which is crueler?”

Sansa finds herself plucking at the grass around their blanket, upset with the conversation topic.

“My grandfather died in one manner and my father another. I think both are terrible.”

“Terrible and necessary, unfortunately. Did you hear news about the man they arrested an hour or so ago?”

She hasn’t. She knew the City Watch had someone arrested— she’d heard the commotion at the Trial Hall— but she didn’t know what for. She assumed something petty like theft; it wasn’t often they dealt with anything worse than that. But she can tell from Tyrion’s gaze that it’s something bad, and she knows from his previous words that it has to do with brothels.

“Was it that man? The one who nearly refused the order to shut down his brothel?” Sansa can’t remember his name. He was close to Sansa’s age, and though he dressed slick and spoke slicker, Sansa knew he was lowborn by the way he bowed when first brought in front of Daenerys and Jon. It was a sloppy, nervous bow, not the straight-spined incline of a man of noble training.

“Sevan. Yes. The man who came to request funds for rebuilding his brothel and danced very close to treason when he was told there would be no more brothels,” Tyrion affirms. “Commander Regin arrested him for running a brothel out of his home.”

Sansa’s certainly no proponent for brothels and finds the entire institution disgusting, but she’s surprised Lord Tyrion thinks that a crime worth burning alive for.

“You’ve changed your opinion on brothels quickly, I see,” she comments.

“No,” he refutes. “I still think it was sentimental and naive of our queen and king to outlaw them entirely. They generate revenue through taxation, and they keep men sane. If the king has truly never visited one, as he so insists he hasn’t, he’s the only king alive that can be said for. It also stands to be seen whether this will cause _more_ violence in the long run…but that was our queen and king’s decision. So no, my opinion on _that_ hasn’t changed, but it’s what Sevan was doing specifically that’s offended me.”

“Which was?” Sansa presses.

“He was letting paying men climb into his little sister’s bed. He insists that she’s flowered, but even so, she’s got to be merely thirteen, if even that. She looks younger than you were when we were wed. Commander Regin is horrified.”

Sansa’s filled with disgust at once.

“That’s horrible. Where’s the girl now? Has she gone somewhere safe?”

“She’s with Maester Aethelwyne.” He must see Sansa’s growing concern because he quickly continues. “The girl is fine. Aethel got word of what happened when Commander Regin brought the girl to a sickhouse, and she knew the queen would want her tended to before all else.”

Maester Aethelwyne is probably right. Sansa would do the same if she were queen and that matter was brought to her attention. A girl that young, flowered or not, is still a girl, not a woman grown. It makes Sansa feel heartsick.

She picks at the grass, her thoughts dark enough that, for a time, she thinks dragonfire might not be so bad. Tyrion gives a sudden inhalation a little later and sits up, discovery clear on his features.

“Figured it out?” Sansa asks, and despite it all, she has to smile.

“Perhaps. We can find the funding for the proposed roads by reopening the brothels— we can use the taxes from—”

Sansa flops back onto the blanket and sighs. “You’ve gone backwards, Tyrion.”

“No, no!” he says, adamant. He turns over onto his side to face her and props his elbow up, resting his cheek in his hand. “The queen’s the real reason the brothels were outlawed. Would you agree?”

Sansa considers that. “Possibly. I think it was her idea, but I don’t think she pressured Jon into going along with it. I believe him when he says he’s never gone to one.”

“Why do you think she was so adamant about them being outlawed?” Tyrion asks.

Sansa doesn’t have to think about that one. She knows why. She and Daenerys had a long conversation about it, one in which Sansa opened up about Littlefinger’s manipulations. It had been a long conversation— a good one. She remembers nearly everything that was said.

“She knows what I know: that the women there are largely and often-times abused and manipulated. Westeros might insist their brothels are different from slavery-based pleasure houses, but it’s still a man selling women for his own profit to other men. There aren’t many ways to paint that where it looks just.”

“ _Some_ whores—”

Sansa interrupts him. “You already gave this spiel during the council meeting we had on this very issue. Yes, you believe some whores love what they do and receive fair pay. But the queen takes offense on the structure of brothels as a whole. This isn’t about one specific whore or another.” _And I don’t want to hear about any of those whores, either._ She doesn’t care to examine why that is, but it makes her uncomfortable.

“Right, right,” he allows impatiently, in a rush to get to his point. “So what if we reopened the brothels, but restructured them. Each woman is her own employer. There are no more brothel owners to absorb any of the women’s wages, and they are free to choose the clients they prefer and send away the ones they don’t. They can set their own prices…what do you think?”

Sansa mulls over it carefully. “And we tax them?”

“Yes. We won’t make as much as we made under Joffrey’s rule, but we should make enough to begin construction on the new roads.”

“Then isn’t the _crown_ just absorbing the women’s wages? Wages they earned with their bodies? Which means the crown, in turn, is the new brothel owner. The crown is selling their bodies for its own profit.”

Tyrion throws his head back onto the blanket with a groan. “Sansa…”

“Am I wrong?”

“No. You never are, factually. But the farmer earns coins with his body, and the builder, too, and the soldier, and the musician.”

“It’s different,” Sansa says firmly.

“Why is it different?”

 _If you were a woman, you’d understand,_ she thinks.

“It just is.”

“Shouldn’t that be a distinction we let people choose for themselves? Our queen loves that— choice. She might go for it. She might. And if she goes for it, I think King Jon will, too.”

“Perhaps. But I don’t think either of them will agree on the heels of this recent arrest.”

“Oh, yes, that’s a fair point,” he grimaces. “The timing of the proposition will be crucial. Perhaps we should wait until they’re in golden moods. If the Conclave’s most recent medicine is a success, that should make them very happy indeed…hmm…”

Sansa thinks, if they’re going to manipulate them, the best possible time to ask will be at dinner. They’re happiest then, with the day behind them and the promise of rest ahead, with the princess tired and happy from a long day of playing and learning. But she doesn’t want to manipulate anyone anymore.

“Let’s ask at breakfast,” she proposes. The time the king and queen are most critical of any propositions. “If they agree, they need to be in _full_ agreement. It can’t be an agreement made spur of the moment whilst in a ‘golden mood’.”

He frowns slightly as he always does when he realizes he’s been proven wrong about something.

“You’re right,” he allows. He shakes his head, smiling. “How are you _always_ right?”

“I’m not _always_ ,” she deflects. She looks down at the blanket, abashed.

“But often,” he persists.

“Yes, often,” she agrees. “Truthfully, Tyrion, I think it’s simply because we see eye-to-eye. We’re probably not ‘right’ all the time to others.”

“I also agree with that. And how funny that is. We couldn’t be more different…yet I always feel you understand my mind, and I hope that you also feel understood.”

Understood, respected, cared for. She feels it all. He is her closest friend— she’s told him as much.

“I do,” she says. She thinks about reaching over to touch his hand. But she’s afraid. She doesn’t know yet how she feels…she wouldn’t want to give him the wrong idea. She’s not even certain how _he_ feels. And she’s not in any rush to find out. Just finding someone who understands her has been blessing enough. “I think that you and I—”

“SANSA!! _SANSA_!”

The princess’s cry is one of relieved joy. Sansa and Tyrion both sit up and peer across the courtyard. Lyaella is hurrying over to them as quickly as her legs will take her, Ghost matching her pace with ease, Arya, Jon, and Daenerys a few paces behind. Sansa opens her arms quickly when she sees that Lyaella has every intention of throwing herself into Sansa’s lap. She grunts softly as the princess does, her momentum such that Sansa’s breath is knocked from her.

“Auntie Sansa,” Lyaella says, and now that she’s close, Sansa can see her eyes are wet with tears. The image of her niece is blocked by ivory fabric as Lyaella pushes her blanket into Sansa’s line of vision. “Help! _Help_!”

Sansa sees the problem at once: the Myrish lace edging has come away from the top left corner of the blanket, the careful stitching torn. It’s easy enough to fix, but as Sansa gently moves the blanket down and meets her little niece’s eyes again, she sees pure devastation in her gaze. She softens completely.

“It’s all right,” she assures the princess quietly. “I can fix it easily.”

Lyaella throws her arms around her neck, and Sansa hugs her, touched as she always is by how deeply Lyaella cherishes her blanket. She never imagined she’d form such an attachment to it when she made it. Had she known, she would’ve made it with less dainty materials than the ones she chose, and she _certainly_ would have chosen a fabric dyed in a shade more forgiving than soft ivory. Sansa often jokes that the crown is paying a ‘baby blanket washer’, as the handmaiden who takes care of Lyaella’s bedchambers ends up washing it multiple times a week with how dirty the princess gets it.

“What happened to it?” Tyrion asks Lyaella curiously. “Was it Moonbloom again?”

“No,” Lyaella answers, sniffing. “I step on it.”

“Aw, well, that’s an easy mistake to make,” Sansa reassures her. “You poor little thing. I’ll fix it, I promise.”

She hugs Sansa tighter at that, visibly relieved. Sansa’s still patting her back consolingly as Jon, Arya, and Daenerys reach them. Ghost, she notices, has planted himself in front of Daenerys. It’s strange, as he’s normally stuck to baby Lyaella when he’s with the Targaryens, though these days he’s often frolicking around the outer edges of King’s Landing with his ‘secret wolf lady’, a joke they use to explain Ghost’s absence to Lyaella. In truth, Jon’s told Sansa he’s not sure where Ghost keeps running off to.

“There you are,” Arya greets, exasperated. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Lyaella was about to level King’s Landing. You know how she feels about the blanket you made her.”

“I’m sorry,” Sansa says, though it’s mostly directed at Lyaella. “We were working on the road budget.”

She returns Jon and Daenerys’s smile, and then she does a double-take at her brother’s wife.

“You changed your hair,” she says, surprised. “Why? It was so pretty.”

It’s not flattery or a lie: it was pretty. Sansa remembers admiring it at breakfast. The braids were twisted and pinned in the back in such a way that they almost looked like a seven-point star. She wondered all morning how she did it, and whether or not her own hair was long enough that the queen could recreate it for her. Now, though, Daenerys’s hair is fastened in a braided bun at the back of her head.

The queen reaches up to touch her hair, her brow furrowing slightly. “Oh, is it?”

“Most definitely,” Sansa insists. “It looked like a star before.”

Jon prods the queen’s hip. “You got ash in it, Dany, remember? Late this morning.”

“I remember,” she says at once. “But when you offered to fix it for me, you said you redid it just the way I had it before. Clearly, it’s _not_ the way I had it before.”

“No,” Sansa affirms. “It’s not. It’s a braid twisted around itself now, sort of bun.”

“Oh, well, it serves the same purpose, anyway,” Daenerys says, lowering her fingers from her hair.

Arya’s watching the queen and king closely, her eyes narrowed. “How did you get ash in your _hair_ in a _library_?”

“What were you looking for in the library, Your Grace?” Tyrion asks with interest. “I know it top to bottom. I can help if you didn’t find the right text.”

The king and queen, in unison: “History on the Night’s Watch.”

Their answer isn’t _that_ strange, but their reactions to each other’s words are. They look at each other at once in visible surprise, and then they quickly look away.

“The Night’s Watch?” Arya repeats skeptically.

“I was looking for some information on things about the…Night’s Watch,” Jon says lamely, struggling to withhold laughter. Daenerys has her fingers pressed lightly to her lips, but that is doing little to hide her smile. Sansa’s not sure what’s funny about the Night’s Watch, but it’s clear they’re hiding something.

“The past Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch needs a text on the Night’s Watch…right…and was this before or after Daenerys stuck her entire head into a fireplace?” Arya challenges.

Jon sighs heavily. “Arya…” he says, and then he turns and lifts her easily, flinging over his shoulder like she’s no older than five.

“Hey!” Arya cries.

“Research is…it’s difficult work,” Daenerys tells Tyrion and Sansa somberly. In the background, Arya is cursing Jon. “You two can appreciate that.”

“PUT ME DOWN! I’LL PULL NEEDLE OUT! I’LL DO IT! I’LL STICK YOU WITH THE POINTY END, I WILL!”

“Is there something you two are planning that pertains to the Night’s Watch?” Tyrion questions. Daenerys doesn’t answer straightaway, and before she can, Lyaella interjects.

“Mamma,” Lyaella says, watching Jon and Arya with mild concern. “Auntie Awa won’t?”

“No, sweetling, she won’t really stab Daddy.”

Only seconds later, Arya twists from Jon’s grasps and lands on her feet.

“Ha! Not as strong as you used to be? You know, being king made Robert Baratheon soft…and fat.”

“He’s clearly not fat, and that’s rude, Arya,” Sansa scolds. “You two stop. You’re acting like children.”

“Are you _sure_ you want a brother, Lyaella?” Arya teases.

That question startles Sansa. She exchanges a look with Tyrion. They’ve been wondering when another heir would be born, but they assumed the king and queen just weren’t ready yet. Perhaps they’ve been talking to Lyaella about siblings because they’re ready now. That would be good— it’s never a good thing for there to only be one royal child.

“Yes,” Lyaella says at once, smiling. “He’s my Aemon. I want him out of the fire.”

“What…?”

“Later,” Daenerys promises Sansa.

Lyaella looks up at Sansa. “Can we fix my banket now?”

“Actually, there’s someplace we’re all needed,” Tyrion reminds them. “Your Grace, has someone informed you about the arrest Commander Regin made whilst you were, presumably, in the library?”

That sobers the king and queen up quickly.

“No,” Daenerys answers. She’s no longer hiding a smile; her lips are pressed into a firm line. “Who and what for?”

“Do you remember that young man, Sevan? The—”

“Brothel owner. Yes, I do,” Daenerys says curtly. She arches a light eyebrow. “He defied our orders?”

“In a manner, yes,” Tyrion answers. He seems reluctant to say any more, but he finds courage. “He was having men pay him…and then he was letting those men into his little sister’s bed.”

The queen stares at him for a hard moment. Sansa’s certain she’s stopped breathing.

“How old?” she finally asks. 

“I’m not certain. But she’s young. No more than thirteen. He says she’s flowered but—”

“I’ve heard enough. I’ll hear his damned excuses from his own vile lips.”

She looks at Jon. He’s equally stone-faced. Sansa can tell he’s just as upset as she is by how tightly his fists are clenched, how white his knuckles are.

“Is the prisoner in the Trial Hall cells?” Daenerys asks.

“Yes, Your Grace.”

She turns without another word and starts that way. Jon walks over and bends down, lifting Lyaella up into his arms. Sansa hurriedly stands and follows after Jon.

“You might not want to take the princess there,” she tells him. “She doesn’t need to hear about this.”

“Lyaella’s going to nap,” he reassures Sansa.

Lyaella looks tired and content enough in Jon’s arms, but she holds her blanket out again.

“My banket…”

“I can fix it while we hear the prisoner’s words. Unless…” she thinks about how furious Daenerys was, how she’d stormed off ahead of everyone else. “Do you and Daenerys want the full council there?”

“Yes,” Jon assures her. “You don’t want to leave us alone with him.”

She feels a chill at those words. _This is Jon,_ she has to remind herself. _Jon is sensible and honorable._ But Jon had also once nearly beaten a man to death.

“I’ll meet you in the Trial Hall,” Sansa says. She blows a kiss at Lyaella. “I’ll be back with what I need to fix your blanket, princess.”

“Okay,” Lyaella says. She relaxes against Jon. Sansa wouldn’t be surprised if she’s asleep by the time she returns.

IV.

“You’re not _listening_ _to me_!” The man shrieks. His eyes are wild as they rove over every face at the council table. He reminds Sansa of Ramsay’s dogs. He’s feral in the eyes like them, caged like them. “She’s _flowered_! She has!”

“No, you’re not listening to _me_ , and you clearly took me for a soft-hearted fool the last time we spoke,” Daenerys bites. She leans forward. “What did I tell you the last time you were standing here?” The man stares. “ _What— did— I — say?_ ”

He grits his teeth so fiercely that Sansa briefly expects to hear his teeth cracking.

“You said it was no longer legal to profit off sex.”

“I said any person found to be selling another human being would be tried and executed. And what did you do?”

He looks from Daenerys to Jon as if he expects Jon to come to his rescue. Sansa’s never seen anything more pathetic in her entire life. The man truly has no idea who he’s facing— that much is obvious. And it becomes even more obvious when he responds to the queen’s rhetorical question with the worst possible thing he could say if his hope was to deescalate the queen’s anger.

“She’s flowered! I can do what I like with her, she’s _my sister_! It’s not as if I’ve opened another brothel—”

Jon interrupts him. His face is dark with hate.

“I’m sick of looking at you and I’m sick of hearing you prattle. Close your mouth and listen. You’ve clearly got nothing new to say in your own defense, and we don’t care that she’s ‘flowered’. She’s a little girl. And the fact that she’s your little sister doesn’t lessen your trouble, as you seem to think it does.”

“She’s _my_ —”

“BE QUIET!” Jon booms, and Sansa jumps. She exchanges a worried look with Tyrion. Ser Davos, seated on Jon’s left side, reaches out and sets a hand on Jon’s shoulder, but Jon hardly notices.

Daenerys’s words are fierce and angry as a slap. “That _little girl_ , that _child_ , is in my Grand Maester’s chambers weeping right now. You had no right—”

“She’s MY—”

Jon’s hand closes into a fist atop the table. “Do NOT interrupt Her Grace!”

“It’s all right,” Daenerys tells Jon, her eyes never leaving Sevan’s. “The next time he does it will be the last time he does it, and then we’ll have no reason to worry any longer.”

That forces Sevan’s mouth shut. His lips press together so tightly that they might as well be sewn.

“You had _no right_ ,” Daenerys repeats, drawing the words out slowly. “She is a person. That is her body— her own. You don’t get to decide what she does with it, and it’s not yours to sell or profit off of. For all your rambling and hysterics, you’d think this was a complicated matter, but it’s truly very simple: you were told and you were warned. You were aware of the laws, and you were aware of the consequences should you break those laws. You chose to anyway. Now you will see I am true to my word. May that be your last lesson.”

Commander Regin and Grey Worm step in, and Sevan backs away from them, terror masking his features at once.

“No! No!” he begs. “You’re not listening! You’re not _listening_! Please just _listen_!” He falls to his knees.

Commander Regin yanks Sevan up roughly. Sansa doesn’t know Regin well— he was previously a bannerman from House Cerwyn before Jon promoted him— but she knows he often reads with the children in the scholarhouses. He appears personally disgusted with Sevan, to the point Sansa fears there’s little to no objectivity to be had.

“Lord Tyrion! Tyrion Lannister!” Sevan pleads. “I know you! You used to frequent brothels all the time before _them!_ ”

 _Them_ — the Targaryens. It’s very clear. Not that Jon and Daenerys take any offense: they’re peering at Sevan like they’ve never seen anything more reprehensible in their lives.

“And what of it?” Tyrion asks. “I never bedded little girls.”

“ _She’s—”_

Arya stands. “I swear, if you say ‘she’s flowered’ _one more bloody time_ —”

Arya’s threats are severed by the sound of the Trial Hall door opening. Every head turns towards it. Sansa’s heart drops to the pit of her stomach as Lyaella wanders in, sleepy, her repaired blanket held to her cheek. Her gray eyes sweep over the hall, finally landing on her mother as she rises. Ezhi and Red Fly burst in after Lyaella, out of breath and horrified.

“I’m sorry, Your Grace! I’m sorry!” Ezhi says. “She woke and we were meant to be walking together to the kitchens for milk— come along, Princess Lyaella—”

Lyaella gingerly pulls her hand from Ezhi’s.

“I want Mamma,” she says gently, as if she fears that might hurt Ezhi’s feelings. “I stay with her.” And then she turns and walks away with so much confidence and authority that both Red Fly and Ezhi hesitate in lifting her up.

“It’s okay,” Daenerys reassures them. She rounds the council table and meets Lyaella halfway. She picks her up and holds her, and Lyaella nestles her face against Daenerys’s neck. “We’re nearly done here. Thank you both.”

It’s astounding the difference Princess Lyaella’s presence makes. Once Daenerys is seated again, Lyaella curled in her arms with her blanket spread over her, her anger appears to drain from her. She gives Sevan coldness and little else.

“I truly regret that you were too foolish to follow the rules of our new world. I wish you could have chosen differently.”

“I had no _choice,”_ Sevan gasps. He doubles over, sobbing pitifully now. “I had no choice…no choice at all…you gave me no choice…” 

He probably doesn’t realize it, but he’s said perhaps the only word that could have bought him some time. Sansa nudges Tyrion’s leg beneath the table, and he nudges back.

“No _choice_?” Daenerys hisses. She’s stroking Lyaella’s hair lovingly; it’s the antithesis to the hatred churning in her violet eyes. “I believe I _do_ wish to hear this, after all. Please, explain to me how I gave you no choice but to have your little sister raped for your own profit.”

He doesn’t flinch at the word, but Sansa does. She feels Tyrion’s warm hand rest against hers. It fights against the chill that’s taken over her skin, the aching that’s begun in her lower back.

“I _had to_! You took away my means of survival, my livelihood! That’s all I’ve ever known!”

Jon’s voice is flat now; it seems Lyaella’s presence has also tempered him.

“Are you telling us that your only profitable skill is using and abusing women’s bodies? If so, that _is_ a problem.”

“I know no other life—!”

It seems Ser Davos can’t contain his anger any longer. He’s the one who interrupts Sevan this time.

“And what, exactly, do you need all this money for? You’re fed, housed, and clothed by the crown! You’re given any medicines you need at our sickhouses, you’ve got access to all manner of entertainment in the courtyards and free lessons at the scholarhouses— seven hells, you can send _ravens_!” Ser Davos cries. “Anything you need money for beyond that is frivolous! You’re handed everything, and yet you feel the need to abuse a little girl, a little girl _you_ should be protecting, for _money_? Why?! What in all the gods’ names do you need to buy so much that you felt the need to put that child through something like that?! Well? _Well_?!”

Sevan’s panting with terror. His eyes are so wide they seem likely to pop from their sockets.

“I…”

“Louder,” Jon snaps. “The King’s Hand cannot hear you, and he asked you a question.”

“I…I was saving for a bottle of Arbor gold.”

Sansa’s certain someone is going to lose their temper and start screaming at that, and someone _should_. He put a girl through unspeakable trauma for a bottle of wine; he should be screamed at, and he should be punished.

But it’s quiet. Everyone but Lyaella is looking at Jon and Daenerys, waiting. Waiting.

“You like wine, I take it,” Daenerys finally says. Her tone is light, airy— it makes the hair on the back of Sansa’s neck rise.

Sevan doesn’t respond. He’s not stupid enough to take her conversational tone for truth.

“He likes _fine_ wine,” Jon corrects. “Arbor gold— it doesn’t get much better than that.”

“We’ve got a bottle,” Daenerys adds, turning to look at Jon. She could have fire reflecting in her eyes for how inflamed she looks. “In our chambers. It was a wedding gift.”

“That’s right,” Jon remembers. “Hardly touched.”

“Clearly we don’t appreciate it as much as Sevan. Perhaps he should have it.” Daenerys turns back to the man. “You shall have your Arbor gold. You will drink it as our dragons burn you alive. I hope the taste is as pleasant as you hoped it would be, but should you find it not to your liking, the dragons might enjoy it. I believe it pairs well with charred meat.”

He collapses back against Commander Regin, entirely hysterical now.

“No! _No! Please! Please! Have mercy!_ I didn’t lay a hand on her! I didn’t hurt her! I didn’t hurt her! She wasn’t hurt! Please!”

“She wasn’t hurt?!” Arya repeats, disgusted.

 _Yes, she was,_ Sansa thinks, her heart aching so deeply it sinks to her toes. _She was hurt. She was. You don’t understand. You could never understand. Not ever._

“I can promise you that she _was_ hurt,” Daenerys spits. She’s so angry her nose twitches, and her lips curl up in disgust. “There are two women in this room who were sold off young, two women in this room who were hurt in the same ways you hurt your sister. You couldn’t have a better-informed council. We were your sister once; we understand completely.” She turns to look down at Lyaella, focusing now on adjusting her blanket over her delicate shoulders. She’s done with the man. “Take him away.”

“NO! NO! PLEASE! KING JON! PLEASE!”

Jon lifts his eyebrows. He holds a hand up, asking Commander Regin to stop. He almost looks amused.

“‘King Jon’?” he echoes. “You think I’m going to save you?”

Sevan tumbles to his knees again. He clasps his hands in front of him.

“Please…please. You understand…I know you do…please! It’s the way of the world— you can’t change the world! It’s her fault! If she hadn’t convinced you to stop the brothels, I wouldn’t have had to sell Roza! It’s her fault! You understand, I know you do! You’re the king! You can stop this!”

Everyone in that hall knows Sevan is lost when Jon turns his eyes to the princess. She’s dozing in her mother’s arms, indifferent to the chaos. Her rosy cheek is pressed over her mother’s heart, and her silver curls— still loose from her nap— fall to her shoulders in shining waves. She’s a picture of true innocence. It’s sickening to realize she’s only a decade removed from Roza’s age.

“I understand,” Jon says lowly, turning back to look at Sevan. Sevan blinks; Sansa knows he’s a true fool when hope floods his eyes. “I understand that you think yourself so important, and think your sister so unimportant, that you thought you could do whatever you liked to her for your own selfish gain, no matter how exorbitant that gain is. Tell me— you never told us before. How much did you charge each man you opened her bedchamber door to?”

Sevan’s lips press together so tightly that his lips bleach white. Jon looks at Commander Regin.

“We heard a couple coppers each, Your Grace,” Commander Regin answers.

“A couple coppers,” Jon repeats slowly. Each word sinks into them; Sansa shivers. “I see you’re a man who likes a bargain, so here’s what I have to offer you: after the queen and I burn you alive, I’ll personally sweep your ashes up, and I’ll make _certain_ they end up in the trash where they belong.” He nods at Grey Worm. “ _Now_ you make take him.”

Sevan shrieks as he’s dragged from the hall back towards the cells. It disturbs the princess; she wakes and looks around, startled.

“It’s okay,” Jon tells her softly. He leans in and kisses her forehead. “Rest, Ly. You’re safe.”

She yawns and nuzzles into her mother’s embrace once more. Daenerys tightens her hold on her, her expression measured and cool. And when she speaks, it’s flat and to the point.

“Are we all in agreement on his sentence?”

Arya responds without hesitation. “Absolutely.”

“He knew the consequences. Yes,” Lord Tyrion votes. 

“Aye,” Ser Davos says, but his voice is gruff, and when Sansa looks at him, he looks terribly sad. He stands. “I’m going to go find out more about who else lives in Roza’s home. We need to make sure it’s safe to send her back once she’s well. If she’s got a father who allowed this, her home _isn’t_ safe.”

“Thank you, Ser Davos,” Daenerys says.

He stops behind Daenerys’s chair on his way from the hall. There’s a short pause, and then he leans over and kisses the top of her head. His hand trembles as he sets it on her shoulder, and for a second, he just grips it. Daenerys’s hard expression softens as she settles her hand atop his.

He says nothing, just reaches out and sets his other hand on Jon’s shoulder, too, and he stands there for a moment. Then he clears his throat and walks away.

After he’s stepped out, Grey Worm returns. He, Daenerys, and Jon talk briefly in Valyrian, and then he nods.

“Yes,” Grey Worm says firmly.

Sansa hardly realizes she hasn’t voted until Daenerys locks eyes with her.

“Sansa?” she asks. “It’s all of us or none of us. We must be certain.”

Tyrion’s gaze weighs heavily on Sansa, but she doesn’t meet his eyes. She knows he’s thinking about what she said earlier about dragonfire; he certainly expects she’ll vote no and throw the entire council into uncertainty. And she truly would’ve expected she’d do the same only an hour ago. But as she observes the queen, and the queen observes her, she feels differently about it than she thought she would. Daenerys’s words echo from the past, long-ago said but not forgotten: _“It was wrong, what happened to you. It wasn’t okay. It never should have been allowed to happen. Somebody should have stopped it— somebody should have protected you…We can’t turn back time, though I wish so much that we could. All we can do is work to make the world better. All we can do is fight for the people out there who haven’t yet lived through those things— the ones we can protect. That is how you master it…by being strong for other people, by doing for them what no one would do for you. What no one could do for you._

Burning someone alive is terrible.

But letting that man go unpunished is terrible, too.

She thinks about suggesting they cut his hands off, or castrate him, or send him alone to the Wall in exile. But then…what are they saying? That little girl’s trauma and torment is just bad enough to warrant the loss of a set of hands? A pair of balls? Freedom? Any punishment beyond execution is putting a price to what happened to her, and Sansa knows there is no price. Nothing will get that little girl back the things that were taken from her. She had been betrayed, and hurt, and that meant something. It was wrong. It never should’ve happened. And if they make an example of him now, perhaps it never has to again.

“Yes,” Sansa decides. The world falls heavy from her lips, but she doesn’t regret it, and she doesn’t take it back. She nods at Daenerys. “I agree.”

Daenerys nods firmly. She turns to Jon last.

“You’re joking, right?” he asks her. “Storm will be there right alongside Drogon. I’m with you, Dany. Now and always.”

Her gaze is warm as she sets her hand against his cheek. They speak without saying a word, and the intimacy of it makes the air awkward and heavy. Arya ruptures it.

“I’d think his stance was pretty obvious when he told the man he was going to sweep his remains up and throw them with the trash,” she points out. “I quite liked that one, Jon.”

The queen responds without tearing her eyes from Jon’s. “I just wanted to be certain.”

The heaviness returns. As is often the case, Sansa can’t determine if the tension is sexual or emotional or both. _Probably both_.

“We’ll execute him in the morning. Let him think on it tonight,” Jon says. He and Daenerys rise. “We’re leaving to take our afternoon meal. We’ll meet at the regular time in the council room for any other matters.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Tyrion responds.

The Targaryens leave, and soon after, Sansa rises as well.

“I’m going to check on the little girl,” she tells them. She has no idea what she’s going to say to her, but she knows she wants to say something. She wants to help. Nobody helped her, but she can help Roza.

She heads to the Grand Maester’s chambers, and though she realizes quickly that there is little she can say to truly ease the girl’s fear, she finds she can help in other ways. She shares lemon cakes with her and lets her guide the conversation, delicate and careful in all things she herself asks and says. Roza doesn’t speak of her brother at all, though at times, she trembles, and it’s difficult for Sansa to see that: it makes her own hauntings louder, and her back stiff, and her stomach heavy. But the longer they talk about easy things, the more relaxed Roza becomes, and it’s a wonderful thing to see— a wonderful thing to have caused.

When Sansa finally leaves, she feels the roots of peace buried near her heart. With how light she feels, she doesn’t think it’ll take much at all to make it sprout. It’s a harvest she’s been waiting ages for.


	3. The Scars at the Start

I.

Grey Worm is stoic as he enters the solar. Jon and Arya— previously preoccupied with supervising Lyaella and her two friends— turn to face him at once.

“We’ve located four of the five men,” Grey Worm greets them. The end of his sentence is drowned out by a startled yelp; Jon turns back to Lyaella in concern, but the children are unharmed: they’re jumping from the couch onto a pile of embroidered pillows throw haphazardly onto the floor, giggling and shrieking as if they’re jumping from some great height.

“Only four? Where is the fifth?” Arya demands.

“We think he may have fled King’s Landing.”

“Daenerys won’t be happy about that,” Arya comments, and she’s right. Daenerys has been very set on making sure the men who ‘purchased’ Roza are located and tried. It’s proven to be more challenging than they anticipated it’d be. They chose to postpone Sevan’s execution until all were found, seeking Sevan’s aid with locating them, but Sevan’s told them everything he knows about these men, and it sounds as if one of them is still evading capture despite Sevan’s relayed knowledge. At this point, they’ll just have to continue on without him.

“I’ll let Daenerys know when she’s finished dressing,” Jon tells Grey Worm. “Let us—”

His mind is wiped clean of all previous thought as he spots Ezhi’s nephew set his hands against Lyaella’s back. Before Jon can say a word, Temmo shoves Lyaella off the edge of the couch. She lands face-down on the cushions; Jon’s heart slams to a stop in his chest.

“Do _not_ push my daughter _—_! _”_ his stern correction is trampled beneath the sound of Lyaella’s sparkling laughter. She rolls happily onto her back, clearly amused by Temmo’s actions rather than frightened or hurt. Jon watches uncertainly for a moment longer, but when Temmo joins Lyaella on the cushions, they merely rest there together, bright giggles spilling from their lips. The third child, Annet’s youngest, joins them, her arms laden with at least ten of Lyaella’s soft blankets and toys, and the three resume playing. Jon forces himself to turn his back on them to keep from hovering (as is his instinct.)

“Keep searching; we’ll find the last man eventually,” Jon finally says, flipping his focus back to the impending execution. “It’s obvious Sevan won’t be able to help us find the fifth man, and we shouldn’t postpone the execution any longer. He has no further use to us. Have his guards bring him to the Dragonpit at midday as planned.”

Grey Worm nods. His attention shifts towards the dressing room doors.

“How is she?” Grey Worm asks in Valyrian. From the corner of his eye, Jon sees Lyaella perk up at the language shift; she’s learned by now that Valyrian almost always means something serious or secretive is being discussed. Curious, she rolls out from beneath Annet’s daughter and climbs to her feet, walking over to lean against Jon’s leg to better eavesdrop. Jon doesn’t stop her: he’s got nothing to hide. He sets a gentle hand atop her head and answers Grey Worm honestly.

“Better than she was early this morning, but still not feeling well.” He reads Grey Worm’s concern. “It’s not the sickness.”

“You are _certain_?” Grey Worm asks. His gaze flits between Jon and Arya, searching for assurances from both parties. And Jon and Arya, both equally certain that Daenerys is pregnant, nod.

“She didn’t look well this morning.”

“She _wasn’t_ well,” Arya affirms. “She got sick twice. But vomiting isn’t part of the sickness, and she isn’t running a temperature.”

All of that is true, yet they’re all so nervous; it doesn’t surprise Jon that Arya sounds almost as if she’s trying to convince herself. And it doesn’t help that Daenerys has expressed a desire to visit the quarantined sickhouse twice now. _They are my people, I should show them I care— I can’t let them suffer there thinking I’ve forgotten all about them, shoved them away and closed them off until they die…they must be so afraid...I should go to them—_ but Jon couldn’t bear it. He had told her as much. He had begged her, all pride stripped away in the face of such great fear (the fear of losing her). It mattered not to him that she pledged to cover her mouth and nose with the maester’s oiled cloths, to glove her hands and keep her distance— that was no guarantee of safety, and her safety _must_ be guaranteed. _It’s not safe,_ he’d pleaded. _They know you care. You have the best maesters tending to them, the best food on their trays, the softest blankets on their beds— they know you care. But you can’t fix them. If you go, you’ll only be putting yourself at risk. Dany, you’ll put our family at risk._

Those words ultimately convinced her to keep her distance, but Jon knows how it pains her to stay away. And he understands— of course he does— but they have to think of Lyaella. _And likely Aemon, too,_ he thinks, his heart fluttering.

“If it’s not the sickness…then is she…?” Grey Worm trails off. He looks questioningly at Jon, his eyes softer now.

“We’re not certain,” Jon answers honestly. He feels his heart lurch at the very thought— he’s not sure whether it’s from excitement or fear. “But possibly.” _Probably._

Grey Worm’s beam is genuine. Jon knows Daenerys has told him before how badly she wants more children, and though he probably doesn’t know the specifics of Jon and Dany’s half-year attempts, he can certainly appreciate the news despite that.

“That is good,” he says in the Common Tongue.

“What’s good?” Lyaella asks him in Valyrian. She hops over to Grey Worm in three long jumps, her arms flapping at her sides. Jon looks over at Arya; she’s already suppressing laughter.

“Are you still a dragon, Lyaella?” Arya asks.

She’s spent the past half-hour _‘paying dagons’_ with Temmo and Nona, and it appears to Jon that she has every intention of ‘flying’ everywhere for the rest of the day.

“Yes,” Lyaella answers happily. “I’m Moonboom.”

“Oh, yes. Of course, Moonbloom,” Arya corrects herself.

Lyaella nods, satisfied. She looks back up at Grey Worm and grasps onto his hand. He lifts his arm up, letting Lyaella dangle in the air. She falls into laughter again as he swings her carefully from side-to-side, but that doesn’t get her mind off her questions. “What, _Nudho_?”

“What _what_ , Lyaella?”

“What is good?” Lyaella persists. She gives a cry of delight as he lifts her higher, almost to the height of his shoulder. “What, what, what?”

“It’s good that your mother is feeling better,” Grey Worm answers. He sets her feet back on the floor, but Lyaella doesn’t let go of his hand. He nods in Temmo and Nona’s direction. “Your friends miss you.”

Lyaella doesn’t even look back at them. “They’re okay.”

Arya snorts.

“Grey Worm has somewhere to be,” Jon says, sensing that Lyaella isn’t going to step away willingly. And Grey Worm is far too gentle with Lyaella to ever tell her to go away on his own. “Tell him goodbye.”

Lyaella tightens her hold on Grey Worm’s hand until he lifts her up again, and once she’s at face-level, she leans in and nuzzles her cheek against his.

“That’s a dagon-bye,” she informs him, and his laughter joins Jon’s and Arya’s.

“Thank you for that dragon-bye,” Grey Worm smiles. They watch as Lyaella flaps and hops back over to Temmo and Nona.

Jon and Arya return to supervising the children as they wait on Daenerys, Annet, and Ezhi. It’s taking a lot longer than Jon assumed it would. Daenerys retreated back to their chambers nearly an hour ago in search of a dress more comfortable in the bust than the one she’d put on this morning, and he hadn’t anticipated that it’d be such a long search. He knew it was a warranted one, though: the dress she wore briefly this morning was obviously too tight, her breasts so compressed beneath the green silk that every time she heaved as she got sick, she flinched in pain. He guesses the search for a better-fitting dress isn’t a simple one, which isn’t that surprising to him: he knows the recent changes of her body well. Last time he checked on her to see how the search was coming along, Annet was taking measurements to go ahead and adjust some of her dresses. And Jon is truly happy to do whatever he needs to do to help Daenerys feel more comfortable, including watching three little ones as Annet lets out the busts of a hundred different dresses if need be, but had he known it would take _this_ long, he and Arya might have sought reinforcements— likely in the form of Ser Davos.

After pulling Temmo off the drapes, preventing Nona from dumping an ink pot on the carpet, and yanking Lyaella off the back the couch before she could make a dive to the floor, Jon’s ready to call for a septa. Thankfully, before he reaches that point, the three go back to the thick Myrish carpet in the center of the room to resume playing dragons.

“I’m the queen dagon. These are my eggs,” Lyaella says. She’s balled two blankets up so they somewhat resemble two large (albeit lumpy) eggs. She tenderly tucks her baby blanket around them, straightening and adjusting the ivory blanket with intense focus. As she does, Temmo reaches over to lift the “eggs”, and Lyaella shoots her arm out and grabs his hand before his fingers can so much as graze her baby blanket. Although Temmo is a bit older than her and a lot bigger, she does a surprisingly good job of restraining him.

“No, Temmo!” she scolds. “That's my baby eggs!”

Temmo pouts. He yanks his hand from hers. “I’m the father-dragon so I can see them!”

Lyaella considers that with narrowed eyes, her little body shielding the eggs possessively. Jon has to press his lips together to keep from laughing as Lyaella stares Temmo down.

“Okay, but don’t _fow_ them,” she finally allows.

“Okay,” Temmo agrees. He lifts up the left “egg”, looks at it for a moment, and then promptly throws it across the carpet.

Nona gasps. “ _No_! The baby egg!”

If Lyaella could burn someone alive with just the fury of her glare, Temmo would be ashes and soot. And Jon’s equally upset. He scowls, automatically offended on Lyaella’s behalf, and he edges over towards them to demand Temmo apologize at once. But Lyaella doesn’t need his help. She glowers fiercely at Temmo, scoops up the egg still tucked under her blanket, and climbs to her feet. She hurries over to the thrown egg and picks it up, cradling it sweetly in her arms.

“Poor sweetling,” Jon hears her coo. She presses kisses to the egg. “You’re okay.”

Then— without a moment’s hesitation— she turns and makes a rude hand gesture at Temmo. Jon’s lips part in surprise. Arya begins howling with laughter.

“ _Lyaella_ —” his surprised scolding is interrupted.

“You are no _fawder!”_ Lyaella roars at Temmo. “Not no more!”

“You tell him, Lyaella,” Arya praises, her words still buffered by peals of laughter. Jon’s trying to determine where Lyaella saw a hand gesture like that. Red Fly, maybe? Arya, perhaps? Not from him or Daenerys, that much he knows.

“I am!” Temmo yells back, clearly angered by that. “I am!”

He climbs to his feet and approaches Lyaella, but she turns her back to him so quickly that her braid smacks him in the face. For Temmo’s benefit, he doesn’t cry, even though his eyes are watering from the force of the whack.

“No! I’m telling! Daddy, he _fowed_ my eggs!”

Jon’s pleased that she’s running to him because now he feels perfectly justified in stepping in, which is what he wanted to do all along.

“That was not nice,” Jon reprimands. “Temmo, if you can’t play nicely, you’ll have to go into the room with Ezhi.”

“I _am_ nice,” Temmo argues. He stamps his foot. “I want to play!”

“Throwing is not nice,” Nona argues, taking Lyaella’s side. “And no stomping at His Grace, that is very bad! You throwed her egg and she said don’t and you did.”

“I want to play!” Temmo insists again.

“Be sorry,” Lyaella orders. She turns to face him again and waits with a stern expression. After he’s “apologized”— though it wasn’t a very good one, in Jon’s opinion— she smiles. Her anger melts away. “Okay. You’re a _solder_ and we go to Essos.”

“No! I’m the father-king dragon!” Temmo whines.

“No. Not.”

“Yes!”

“NO!”

“Yes! There is always a king!"

“ _Buver_ is, not you! ‘Cause _Buver_ is nice! You _FOWED_ MY EGG!”

Lyaella switches randomly to Dothraki for the last half of her angry sentence, and Jon’s not certain what she says, but whatever it is infuriates Temmo. He responds in Dothraki, too, gesturing around them as he does, and Lyaella glares.

“I do! He's in the fire!”

“He’s not!”

“He’s the _fawder_ -king because he has a dagon!”

“No! No!” Temmo argues.

“Yes! You _fowed my eggs_!”

The two go back to raging at one another in Dothraki. Neither Jon nor Arya comment on Lyaella’s ‘brother’ remarks. She talks innocently about ‘Aemon’ often, not truly understanding the things she says. Last night she’d hidden three lemon cakes in her pocket for _Buver,_ insisting that she save them for him without understanding that he doesn’t actually exist, so Jon’s certain most her chattering about him is confused and harmless.

Nona finally puts a stop to Lyaella and Temmo’s bickering. She's older than both Lyaella and Temmo, and it's never been more obvious than it is in that moment. She walks over to them and sets her hand firmly on one of the eggs.

“I’m fixing your eggs,” Nona tells Lyaella. “I fixed them. I’m the maester.”

Lyaella smiles at Nona. “You’re my best maester,” she says lovingly. She strokes the mended eggs and looks back at Temmo. For a second, Jon thinks she’s going to relent and let him play the father-dragon again, but he underestimates how much Temmo offended her. “You can be the _solder_ but not the _fawder_ ,” she says again.

Temmo stamps both feet this time. “ _I want to be the father-king dragon!”_

“You are a sad boy then,” Lyaella says. She shrugs indifferently. 

It’s so cheeky that Jon has to turn his back to hide his laughter, not certain he should be encouraging that level of cheekiness. Arya doesn’t bother hiding her laughter, though. Thankfully, the children are so absorbed in their game they hardly seem to notice it. When Jon turns back around, Temmo is sitting and pouting while Lyaella and Nona ‘bathe’ the eggs.

“Be the _Awa_ now,” Lyaella requests.

“I’m the maester,” Nona repeats.

“And the _Awa_?”

“What is that?”

“The _Awa_ ,” Lyaella insists, and then she turns and points at Arya. Nona follows her finger. When she sees Arya, she nods as if that makes perfect sense.

“Okay.” As soon as she agrees, Lyaella lets her hold one of the eggs. Nona cradles it. “Let’s go on our walk now.”

Jon can’t stop himself from reaching over and pulling his little sister to his side. She’s suppressing a grin as he musses her hair.

“Our _Awa,_ ” he teases fondly.

“Where does this put me in the line of succession?” she quips.

She’s laughing as Jon musses her hair again, though she jerks away from his hand soon after.

“Don’t _really_ mess up my hair,” she says, reaching up to pat at the braids Daenerys did this morning. 

“You don’t care about your hair. You only let her braid it because you felt bad for her.”

“Maybe not, but I don’t want her coming out to see her hard work ruined. And of course I felt bad for her: she feels bad. Because _you_ put a baby in her.”

Outwardly, Jon gives Arya a dry look, but inwardly, he feels his stomach twist.

“She _wanted_ a baby in her,” Jon reminds Arya. “And we don’t know for sure if—” he stops at Arya’s incredulous look.

“Oh, we know,” she tells him. “I got a prime viewing of the Royal Vomit this morning, don’t forget.”

“Okay, yeah,” Jon relents. Daenerys doesn’t like to speak as if it’s a certain thing, but Arya doesn’t seem to have a problem with it. “You know it’s what she wanted.”

“Vomiting?”

“A baby. I wasn’t being reckless with her health, and I didn’t pressure her into having another. It’s what she wanted.”

Do his guilt and worry seep into his words? They must. Arya looks up at him with a frown.

“I didn’t mean for it to sound like I thought you did. I don’t think that at all. I’m sorry,” she says, her voice softening. “I’m happy for you both. You know I am. I’m just…”

“Worried,” Jon completes for her. She nods. “You can’t be as worried as me.”

“I can so and I am. It’s not even _time_ to worry and I’m worrying.”

Their attention is drawn back to the little ones as Temmo gives up on pouting and turns to aggravation instead.

“ _I want to be the father-king, I want to be the father-king, I want to be the father-king, I WANT TO BE THE FATHER-KING—!!_ ”

“You _stop_! My eggs are asleeping!” Lyaella scolds.

Right as Temmo and Lyaella begin bickering in Dothraki once more, the door to the dressing room opens. Both Ezhi and Daenerys appear confused as they step out and take in the quarreling children. Daenerys asks them a few questions in Dothraki, Lyaella points angrily at Temmo, and then Temmo begins crying. Ezhi ends it all with a stern-sounding sentence. Temmo runs over to her and cries into the leg of her breeches.

“Temmo throwed Lyaella’s egg,” Nona tells Annet.

Annet meets Jon’s eyes. She appears embarrassed. “Nona didn’t cause any trouble, did she, Your Grace?”

“The opposite,” Jon assures Annet.

He appraises Daenerys as she approaches him, and it’s difficult not to let his gaze weigh heavily on her body. She’s vivid in bright blue, her beauty so vibrant it’s captivating. As worried as he already is about her going through pregnancy again, he can’t help but find her changing body incredibly alluring. She’s always beautiful—always—but lately she’s been irresistible; he’s found himself hard at inopportune moments, sometimes from something as small as the sway of her hips as she walks or her teeth pressing briefly into her soft bottom lip as she ponders something. He assumed he’d be less insatiable once he achieved his goal, but now that she’s finally pregnant ( _she’s got to be,_ he thinks) it only seems to have gotten worse for him. _And her, too,_ he reminds himself, thinking about how voracious she’s been lately. As desperate as he is to untie her dress and sink into the heat of her each night, she’s just as desperate to tear his clothing from his skin and claim every inch of him. And he’s suffering other strange side-effects, too. Given how often he’s intimate with her, the last thing he expects to experience is jealousy, but he finds he can’t stomach another man looking at her too long or too intently. And she’s impossible not to look at: in just the past week, he’s seen more men than he cares to count eying her in the audience chamber. Each time, he’s had to grip the seat of his chair tightly, his blood running hot and fast in his veins. _Don’t look at her,_ he wants to growl, but that’s ridiculous. He knows that reaction is the product of many different emotions: his protectiveness over her and the life within her, his deep concern for her wellbeing, and, though it brings him no pride to admit it, an attraction so deep he finds himself slipping towards possessiveness. The last thing he wants is to be clingy and jealous so he’s quick to stop himself when he senses it happening, but there are some things he just can’t stop, and his attraction to her is often one of them.

Like now. His skin tingles at every point she touches as she steps close to him and rises up to kiss him.

“Stop,” she chides him softly, and he knows very well what she’s scolding him for. She can read his indecent thoughts easily. _Your eyes get stormy when you want me,_ she told him once. And though he can’t picture what that actually looks like, he knows the roiling power of his own desire well. It certainly feels storm-like.

“Can’t,” he replies, his voice gruff. He wraps his arms around her waist, tugging her against his body. She must not be _too_ concerned about his improper thoughts: he feels her nails scratch at the nape of his neck as she kisses him again, and she knows how that makes him shiver. Despite the heaviness building low in his gut, his heart eases and lightens in the comfort of her presence. He kisses her shoulder briefly and then tugs at the collar of her dress.

“This dress is much better, I take it?” he asks.

“You’ve got no idea,” she affirms.

He has to force himself not to stroke the sides of her full breasts. The desire is so intense that his fingers twitch against her lower back. He has to remind himself about the various other people in the room. And then he has to remind himself again. And once more.

“This one looks much more comfortable,” he finally says, his voice taut.

Her laugh is soft. “You clearly like it.”

He can’t find it in him to feel ashamed. He leans in and kisses her cheekbone, choosing to rest his cheek against hers sweetly right afterwards, but it’s merely a ruse to get his lips near enough to her ear to murmur: “I’d like it better at your feet or bunched at your waist.”

He feels her cheek rise with the curve of her smile.

“We’re alike in that way, you and I,” she says lightly. “Though is that the proper mood to be in before an execution? Hmm…I’m not sure.”

That reminder sobers him up slightly, but perhaps not as much as it should. He hugs her closer and rests his forehead against hers, and the sweet scent of her hair consumes him; he wishes he could sink into her right now in every way possible— into her mind as they do in the fire, into her body as they do in bed— anything to be one with her and feel her _there_ , as close as possible, safe and happy and whole— his lips find hers, and he sways her gently as he tastes her, the front of her body pressed so close to his that he can feel each and every throb of her heart—

“All right,” Arya says loudly, audibly disgusted. “There are kids in here…seven hells…stop that before you put twins in her."

“Is that meant to discourage us? Twins are efficient,” Jon mumbles against Dany’s lips.

“Wish it worked like that,” Dany agrees, breathless from his last kiss. He nearly groans, her breathlessness weakening his self-control. It makes him think about her last night…her fingers threaded through his curls…her thighs— _no,_ he warns himself, his pulse rushing in his veins. _Think about something else. Think about coins and tariffs and taxes. Coins, tariffs, taxes. Not Dany’s gasps or her trembling thighs or the taste of her—_ his hand flattens to the small of her back; he tugs her closer, her hips pressing his... _—_ _no._ _Coins...Tariffs. And taxes._

Jon thinks Dany must sense his torment; she kisses him a final time, her lips curved up in a smile, and then she steps back, putting blessed and cursed distance between them. Her cheeks are rosy and her eyes glassy, the violet of her eyes naught but a thin ring around her pupils, and Jon has to physically turn away to keep from seizing her in his arms once more.

“Go stick your head out of the window or something,” Arya tells him. Jon feels so love-drunk that he’s not sure whether she’s giving him genuine advice out of pity or insulting him, but either way, he follows it. He walks over to the farthest window in the solar and tries to think about anything _but_ his wife as he takes in the bright sun and the people in the courtyard below. It’s easier with his eyes torn from her, but he can still hear her laughing with Lyaella, and that sound swells his heart so much that his tenderness turns quickly into yearning. He can’t wait to be alone with her again. Her last pregnancy had largely been consumed by fear, trauma, illness, and Jon’s absence; this pregnancy, he’s realizing, is likely to be the stark opposite, at least in terms of his presence. At this point before, he was withdrawing from her as completely as he could; now, he feels he can’t get close enough. Surprisingly, this is its own form of torture, though a torture much sweeter and warmer than the cold sharpness of all the mistakes he’d made before.

He stays at the window until Red Fly arrives— their cue to leave. Dany comes to stand at Jon’s side.

“Are you ready?”

He looks down at her. They search each other’s eyes, but there’s no uncertainty to be found.

“If you are.”

“I am. I’m ready to have this behind us.”

He is, too.

Leaving Lyaella is easier than they thought it’d be. She was uncharacteristically clingy that morning, which is why they arranged to have Temmo and Nona brought to Rhaella’s Fortress before they departed for the execution. They hoped it would distract her when it came time for them to leave, and it works as well as they’d hoped. They kiss her goodbye and she doesn’t shed a single tear as they walk from the solar, too busy running around the room with her friends. Jon’s relieved, though he can’t help but look behind them as they walk away. He knows Lyaella will be well-protected there with Arya and Red Fly, but leaving her always feels unnatural, like he’s walking away from his own heart.

Ghost joins them as soon as they step foot outside Rhaella’s Fortress. His muzzle is stained copper from a recent hunt, and the white fur on his legs is brown with caked dirt and mud. Wherever he was beforehand, he clearly decided being here with Dany now is more important. He sticks to Daenerys’s side the entire walk, and as Jon fills Dany in on what Grey Worm told him about the missing fifth man, she strokes her fingers slowly through Ghost’s fur. Ghost looks to be enjoying her attention so much that Jon thinks it likely he’d lunge at anyone or anything that tried to take that attention away from him.

“I told him we want to go ahead with our plans for midday execution,” Jon tells her. He hopes she won’t be upset; at the time, it’d seemed like the right thing to do. “We’ve already put the execution off for a fortnight. Any longer seems unjust. We’re not going to find that last man with any help of Sevan’s.”

His worries are unfounded. She’s of the same mind as him on this, and on most else. Lately, they’re one more than two, together more than apart.

“I agree. It’s been long enough. I don’t want to get into the habit of keeping prisoners.”

She’s forced to stop walking abruptly as Ghost steps directly in front of her. He stands still and stiff, his red eyes following a visibly drunk stablehand’s progression towards the stables. He clearly doesn’t want Daenerys anywhere near him: he refuses to budge until the man has disappeared into the structure. Only then does he resume walking at Daenerys’s side, though Jon notices his hackles are still up. His distrust feeds into Jon, or maybe Jon’s feeds into him: either way, the rest of the walk, they stay close to Daenerys.

II.

She was feeling fine for most of the walk, but the smell of Roza’s lunch causes nausea to surge and churn within her. She swallows hard against the feeling and holds onto the edge of the table, her eyes fluttering closed as she feels her throat convulse against the urge to be sick. Sweat beads at her hairline, and she feels hot and cold all at once; it’s a close-knit marriage of fire and ice within her frame, and the blue silk of her dress dampens even as she shivers.

Roza is still talking on about mummer shows— her favorite topic— but Daenerys is certain if she sits there for a moment longer she’s going to get sick all over the table. She rises unsteadily and retreats away from the salty smell of Roza’s beef stew. It makes her think about that thick bone broth she’d choked down whilst laboring with Lyaella, and that memory only serves to disgust her more. She presses her forehead against the cool wall and stands there breathing shallowly against rapidly-swelling nausea, thinking over and over _I will not get sick again. I will not get sick again. I will not get sick again._ Maester Aethelwyne told her that her nausea is a very good sign, but Daenerys isn’t wholly convinced. She had a tender stomach with both Rhaego and Lyaella but never had she vomited twice in one day. _Though,_ she reminds herself, I _was sick on and off the entire time with Lyaella. I just have no way to truly know how much of that was because of the pregnancy and how much of it was because of Bloodraven._

She’s worried about the vomiting, worried that something else might be wrong with her. Though she’s fairly certain now that she’s pregnant, that realization hasn’t assuaged her fear. Getting here was only half the battle. She’s spent so much time focusing on getting pregnant that she hasn’t had time to worry about _staying pregnant_ until now, but lately, that’s the concern that shadows all her thoughts. She’s hyperaware of her own body: she checks her smallclothes for blood multiple times a day, and any twinge of pain anywhere close to her abdomen makes her heart plunge to her toes. Because nothing is guaranteed; she knows she could wake up in a puddle of blood at any point. She knows she could lose everything she’s tried so hard to get in the blink of an eye. She even worries that she’s so unwell right now for some other, more sinister reason, a reason that could take her child from her before he’s even truly begun. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to release the breath suspended in her lungs until she feels her child stir, and that feels like a lifetime away.

As she battles her worries and her nausea, she feels a hand settle on her back. She knows it’s Jon without so much as peeking through her eyelashes. The spiced scent of him is as known to her as the shape and weight of his hand, as the warmth of his touch. She wants to ask him if things are ready at the Dragonpit— he went to check on things while she stayed to talk with Roza— but she’s certain words aren’t the only thing she’ll bring up her throat if she parts her lips to speak.

“Again?” He sounds worried. He rubs slow circles over her spine. “Do you want to go home? I’ll finish things here.”

The thought of their bed is inviting, but she can’t miss the execution. They’re going to do it together, side-by-side, even if she must vomit as they do. _And I might,_ she thinks. She feels her diaphragm spasm as the pressure of her nausea builds rapidly up her throat. There’s nothing more she can do to avoid it: she twists at the waist so she’s facing away from Jon, and right as she heaves, she sees a flash of metal as a bowl is held in front of her. She hardly registers her relief at being saved from drenching Aethel’s floor in bile, too overcome with mind-wiping discomfort as she retches.

When her heaving panders off, Jon goes to move the bowl away, but she reaches blindly for his hand.

“Wait,” she says weakly. She feels her throat clench again as she gags, though this time, nothing comes up as she heaves over the bowl.

“What number is that?” Aethel asks distantly. Daenerys’s pulse drowns out every other sound.

“Third time today,” Jon answers. He disappears for a moment— Dany guesses he’s passing the bowl off— and then he returns, his arm looping around her hips. She’s shaky, but she’s feeling much better already. She straightens and sets towards the privy to rinse her mouth, Aethel following after her.

“Here,” Aethel says, passing her a small vial full of dark amber liquid. “Rinse with that. It’ll help.”

She doesn’t question it. The liquid is warm and tingly; it erases the taste of vomit from her mouth and helps to further settle her stomach. Daenerys leans against the wash basin afterwards, taking a moment to let her legs grow steadier. She reaches for the maester’s hand and pulls it up, pressing the woman’s palm to her forehead. It’s probably the tenth time she’s done so this week.

“No,” Aethel assures her. She sets her palm against Daenerys’s cheek for good measure, but she finds nothing worrying about her temperature. “You’re just with child, Your Grace.”

“I don’t recall it being this bad the other two times.”

“Are you eating frequently like we discussed?”

“I’m trying to,” Daenerys answers, and it’s the truth. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. All she cares to stomach lately are things of little substance— passionfruit halves drizzled with sweet cream, honey-cherry jam smeared on dates, blood orange wedges dusted in cinnamon— and she doesn’t want to be a bad influence on Lyaella, who would gladly live off dried figs and honeyed milk for the rest of her days if her parents allowed it. Daenerys can’t very well lecture her on the importance of eating a varied diet if she isn’t listening to her own words. So she’s been trying to choke down the things she wants Lyaella to eat more of, meats and breads and vegetables and nuts, but keeping them down is difficult, and some foods make her sick just from the smell. She’s realizing now that she isn’t going to be able to bend her body to her mind’s will no matter how hard she tries. She’s going to have to sit down and talk with Lyaella and find a way to explain everything to her. She’ll tell her the truth, and she’ll stress to her how important it is for her to eat well to keep her strength up so she doesn’t fall ill.

“I’ll do better,” she promises.

“Just take care of yourself. You know how to do that. You’re the only one who really does. We are the masters of our own bodies, all of us,” the maester tells her.

_Right now, it feels like my body is the master of me,_ Dany thinks. It’s not a new thought. Her reign has been marked by enemies of a quiet and intimate nature: her own moon blood drenching her smallclothes month after month, the fever that blazed through Lyaella’s tiny frame when she was two, this current sickness that’s slowly snaking through her kingdom. She is no stranger to enemies like these; she knew the pale mare in Meereen, the infection that poisoned Drogo’s blood, the curse that took her firstborn from her. She knew starvation. But rarely were these enemies sent her way without some external force guiding them. The maegi brought death to Drogo and Rhaego, and greed and corruption brought starvation and disease. And that was somewhat comforting. Daenerys could burn maegis, she could overthrow corrupt rulers, and she could fight greed with compassion. But she doesn’t know how to overcome intimate enemies without evil commanders. She doesn’t know how to control the uncontrollable or protect the ones she loves from internal wars within their own bodies. It makes her feel vulnerable. And they are truly _all_ vulnerable. Despite the grandiose lies Viserys wove Daenerys’s entire childhood, Targaryens are just as susceptible to illness as Starks, Baratheons, and Lannisters. Her daughter is just as susceptible. And she is, too.

_Were the people who died in the quarantined sickhouse the masters of their own bodies?_ she wonders. _In the end, they must have felt as if that sickness was the master, and themselves the slaves._

What can she do? About any of it?

_Not much,_ she admits to herself. _Yet I will still do all I can, whatever that may be. Even if it’s not enough._

She apologizes to Roza when she returns to the table. Thankfully, Roza’s finished eating, and all evidence of the stew that had turned Daenerys’s stomach is gone. She looks to have been chatting easily with Jon in Daenerys’s absence, and that brings a smile to Daenerys’s face. The first week that Roza stayed here with Aethel, she froze in fear when faced by any man. She seems to have realized that Jon means her no harm, and Daenerys noticed yesterday that she’s entirely comfortable around Grey Worm, too. That isn’t surprising, though: Grey Worm is here more often than anyone else, though it isn’t Roza he’s visiting.

She joins Jon and Roza’s casual conversation, not in any hurry to rush the more difficult one she needs to have with Roza. As she hoped, that difficult conversation unfurls itself naturally.

“I’ve seen all five of them flying overhead,” Roza tells them, speaking of the dragons. “My brother said…” she stops.

Dany doesn’t care what her brother said, which is certain to be ignorant propaganda against House Targaryen. What she cares about is that Roza has mentioned her brother for the very first time in all the conversations they’ve had together. Sansa visits her often as well, and she’s confirmed that she never mentions him during their chats, either. It’s the window Daenerys needs.

“Brothers say many things,” she says. “Not all things are true. For some of us, most aren’t.”

Roza’s eyes drift to Jon.

“Not him,” Daenerys says. She sets her hand on Jon’s thigh beneath the table. “He had wonderful brothers, the kind I hope to one day give my daughter.”

Roza meets Daenerys’s eyes. Daenerys sees such curiosity in her youthful eyes; it makes her feel sad. For a second, she remembers fully what it felt like to be that age. To feel so powerful and powerless all at once. To feel so afraid— yet to be so resilient. Thinking back now, she doesn’t know how she lived through the things that she did, but she had. And Roza would, too. She already is.

“Yours?” Roza asks shyly. She’s visibly unsure about asking the queen any personal questions, but Daenerys has been waiting for her to ask this for a fortnight now.

“Yes. Mine,” Daenerys affirms. “I had two brothers, both older than me. Rhaegar was the oldest; he was gentle and brave and good, and I never got the chance to know him. But the best of him lives on.” She strokes her thumb against Jon’s thigh, her heart growing heavy with affection. He cradles her hand between his. “My other brother was Viserys. He raised me. I knew him well— the light and the dark, the kindness and the cruelty. I think he felt some measure of fondness towards me at one point, but never more than what one might feel towards a cherished possession. I was never anything more than something to own and control to him. He sold me for his own benefit when I was just a girl and traded my maidenhood for an army.” She almost stops there, but she wants to be fully honest. Roza deserves that. “I was so young and so afraid…” she trails off.

She doesn’t want to upset Roza, but she wants her to know that she understands. She wants her to know that someone has lived through things similar to her own experiences, that she survived them and took her own power back from those who sought to steal it. That the things she went through didn’t define her. It’s finding the words that’s difficult.

“I had no safety or comfort at that point in my life. I was afraid of my husband, who was older than me and stronger than me and could do whatever he liked to me, and I was afraid of my brother, who I knew would hurt me should I so much as cry in the presence of the man he sold me to. Viserys was my only family, the only person in the world I had, my blood. Yet he was the reason for all my pain. I felt powerless because I couldn’t protect myself from Viserys, and I couldn’t protect myself from my husband, who hurt me so much that I soaked my pillow with tears each night and planned to die rather than continue living that way.”

It’s honest, perhaps brutally so. She feels Jon’s gaze weighing heavily on her, and she realizes suddenly that she’s never truly spoken of that time in her life with him. Not in such detail. But it’s not his reaction she’s focused on: it’s Roza’s. She sees the young girl hanging onto every word, her eyes following each minuscule shift in Daenerys’s expression, her gaze searching and enraptured. Daenerys takes stock of herself to ensure she’s sitting tall and holding herself proud: she wants Roza to see strength and resilience.

“Their cruelty towards me had no sway over who I am. It had no power over who I would become. I am me, and I’ve always been, and that’s powerful; they couldn’t take that from me, and no one can take it from you, either,” Daenerys says. “Now I am the queen of the Seven Kingdoms, and I protect myself, my family, and my people. I get to protect everyone who can’t protect themselves. I get to stop the cycle. Roza, that’s what I must do today. It’s not simply about justice, though I seek that for you and will not stop until we claim it; it’s about protection. I cannot have people in my world who sell other people like cattle, people who subject the ones that they _should_ love the most to cruelty and harm. I gave your brother a second chance, and he squandered it. I do not give thirds. Do you understand?”

Roza nods slowly. Jon’s hands tighten gently around Dany’s.

“I won’t take your choice from you. He’s your brother, and you’re the one he harmed. He will be punished, but you will have power over how he is punished. If you want his life spared, we will spare it. We will exile him to the ends of the known world and be done with it. If you want him dead, we’ll execute him. But I also know how heavily a choice like that can weigh on one’s shoulders, no matter what you choose. And I know that, sometimes, we’re not in a place where we can make a choice like that, or a place where we _want_ to make a choice like that. That’s a further trauma you shouldn’t have to experience, another burden you shouldn’t have to carry. I can and will shoulder that choice for you should you ask it of me. So you have the choice to make a choice; say the word to exile him, and I will. Say the word to execute him, and we’ll rise now. Or you can choose to let me choose, and I will act in whatever way I deem safest for the people in our kingdom. Whatever you will, we support it.”

She wants to save her from further abuse at the hands of her brother, _and_ she wants to save her from the burden of guilt. She wants to save her from moments of tormented uncertainty, from dark hours wondering if she’d made the right choice— from brief moments of soul-aching regret. She wants her to have as much peace of mind as she can in the years to come. But it’s not up to her to decide which choice will give her that. Only Roza knows that.

Roza doesn’t think about it for as long as Daenerys previously assumed she would. She replies after only a few short moments.

“What would you do, Your Grace?”

That question draws Daenerys’s lungs to a stop. It pulls her up short. Out of respect for Roza, she resists the urge to answer on instinct and considers it fully. What would she do? Well, what had she done? She chose to have her own brother executed. She chose kinslaying to prevent kinslaying. Had she allowed Viserys to continue on, he would have eventually harmed her or her child. He never would’ve been able to take seeing her revered and loved above him. He never would’ve been able to see her as anything but a possession that stepped out of line. He never could’ve given her the love she craved or the respect she deserved. For Viserys, exile was not an option. He would’ve stopped at nothing. _I’d let his whole khalasar fuck you if need be, sweet sister, all forty thousand men, and their horses too if that was what it took to get my army._ Anything for his army. And nothing for her. Had she somehow lived to make it to Westeros beside him, had things somehow played out in a similar way, had she met Jon and loved Jon despite it all (had she found him again, despite it all), she’s certain Viserys would’ve done anything and everything to hurt him. To hurt their child. He would’ve despised Jon for his claim to the throne, he would’ve coveted Daenerys. Even now, she can feel the point of his sword between her tender breasts, the shivering slide of it to her stomach. _Tell him I want what I bargained for, or I’m taking you back. You and the eggs both. He can keep his bloody foal. I’ll cut the bastard out and leave it for him._

But then… _“Sister, please…Dany, tell them…make them…sweet sister…”_

Sister, that was true. Sweet? That was not.

Roza’s question reverberates through her mind with a hundred memories, the sparse light and the frequent dark. _What would you do, Your Grace? What would you do?_

She touches her flat stomach. She’s here and there, her hand over her son in both places.

“What I did,” Daenerys answers. She looks away from the wall and meets Roza’s eyes. “I would do again what I did before.”

“If you were me?”

Dany blinks. Isn’t it obvious? “I was you.”

When Roza finally makes a choice, she doesn’t cry. She just looks tired.

“I don’t want to see him ever again,” she whispers, her voice breaking on the last word. “I was locked in my chambers for so long…I don’t know how long. He wouldn’t let me eat if I cried. And I couldn’t keep from crying.”

It’s the most information they’ve gotten from her thus far. It’s just enough to break Dany’s heart.

“I want it over,” Roza says, her voice so quiet it’s barely audible. “Will it ever be?”

Daenerys reaches across the table with her free hand and sets it palm up in front of Roza. Roza reaches up with trembling fingers and sets hers atop Daenerys’s. Daenerys holds her hand very gently.

“Yes. It will be. Would you like me to end it? Would you like me to choose?”

_A mother’s job is to protect. A mother’s job is to carry burdens for her children. A mother’s job is to take care of her children. A mother’s job, sometimes, is to make terrible choices— and to shelter her children from them._

“Yes,” Roza breathes.

Daenerys nods. She squeezes Roza’s hand softly, and then she meets Jon’s eyes. His jaw is clenched with firm resolve, his eyes hard. He has no doubts, either.

She built and grew this kingdom whilst Lyaella grew inside her womb. It was fruit of her own heart, labor of her own love. It was her child. And she would protect it and its inhabitants as such.

III.

Storm is hot as flame. His scales press to Jon’s side, his body as boiling as his fierce gaze. He despises the man weeping in fear in front of them; Jon’s not sure if Storm’s hatred is a decision he’s made all on his own, or if he’s simply sensing Jon’s own hatred.

Sevan stopped attempting to convince them of his innocence long ago. Instead, he’s spent the past week trying to convince everyone he sees that Daenerys is a power-maddened foreign queen with no understanding of Westerosi ways who stole his sister from him, who drove him to extremes by doing the unthinkable: closing down the brothels. Last Jon had seen him, he was crazed with hatred for her and ranting at a very bored Dothraki guard.

Now, though, he’s just small and scared. His hatred has burned out, leaving fear in its place.

Ser Davos rises.

“Sevan, you are brought here before the Crown on the twentieth day of the ninth moon, charged and convicted of enslaving your sister, Roza. For selling her to men and forcing her to lay with them against her will for your own profit. You will be granted an opportunity for last words now.”

Sevan parts his lips. He’s sobbing so hard that thick strings of snot drip into his open mouth. Jon’s lip curls in disgust; Sevan looks hideous and pathetic. He feels no pity for him. _Cry like Roza did every time you let a man into her bed, every time you dishonored your family and yourself. Cry and die. You and every man like you. You will never live in my daughter’s world._

“I—I—I—” Sevan can’t utter anything beyond that. He locks eyes with Jon, his wild and desperate, and he sinks to his knees in front of him.

That only disgusts Jon more. For every twinge of annoyance bowing causes, kneeling causes thrice that. There is only one person in the world Jon likes to see knelt in front of him, and it’s certainly not this man.

“Stand up,” he orders coldly. Sevan clasps his hands in front of him pleadingly, but he doesn’t move. “Off your knees!”

Storm roars furiously to Jon’s left. Sevan scrambles quickly to his feet.

“Your Grace,” he stutters, begs, pleads. But Jon feels nothing. His mind is too full of other things, such as the heaviness in his wife’s voice as she relayed the things Viserys put her through, or the way Roza’s hands trembled as she told them about being locked in her chambers and turned into nothing more than a bedslave, with her brother going so far as to use starvation as a means of control. Sevan will get nothing from Jon or from anyone else. That’s a decision Jon has made.

Jon looks him in the eye, and he speaks.

“I, Jon of House Targaryen and House Stark, First of My Name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Realm, sentence you to die.”

Sevan falls to his knees again, this time with a shrill wail. _It’s fitting,_ Jon thinks. _He lived with no honor and no dignity, and now he’s to die the same way._

Ghost shadows Daenerys as she steps forward. In the muted light, her face is hard, her beauty hallowed and haunting.

“I, Daenerys of House Targaryen, First of My Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons, sentence you to die.”

Sevan succumbs to a litany of hysterical denials.

“You can’t! You can’t! You can’t do this! You _can’t_!”

Daenerys doesn’t spare him a response, and neither does Jon. Because they can. And they will.

Jon steps up to stand level with Daenerys. They stare forward, bearing witness to Sevan’s last moments, bathed in the shadows Drogon and Storm cast. In that pocket of darkness, it almost feels like the sun has been drawn from the sky completely, and time seems to stop. They stand, their dragons tense at their sides as they wait to strike, each breath suspended in time. When Sevan finally calms, he looks up at them, tears wetting his face, and Jon seeks Daenerys’s hand. Her fingers push between his.

“ _Dracarys,”_ they say, their voices entwined.

Light explodes in front of their vision, and Jon has to close his eyes against the brutal heat. The power of Drogon and Storm’s combined fire is so all-consuming that Sevan doesn’t even have time to yell. He’s dead in seconds, burned down to ash. There’s not even a lingering odor this time.

Jon releases Daenerys’s hand. He reaches towards his throat and unfastens the closure of his grey cloak, pulling it off and flinging it over Storm’s back for safekeeping. He feels Daenerys’s eyes weighing on him as he sets about rolling his sleeves up to his elbows. He looks at one of the guards posted near the door.

“Fetch me a broom,” he orders. “And a bin. Bring a sponge and bucket as well.”

“A broom, Your Grace?” the guard questions, clearly uneasy with Jon’s request. “We will have this cleaned up immediately, there is no need for you to do it. You are a king.”

Jon pulls his ring from his finger and turns, passing it to his queen. She takes it, sliding it onto her thumb for safekeeping, her eyes burning into him. There are questions lurking beneath the heat of her gaze, but it will soon be obvious to her. He intends to scrub this floor if that’s what it takes to ensure the removal of every last speck of ash, and he doesn’t want to risk any remains caking into the fine details engraved in his ring. It’s a symbol of his duty to this realm, and Sevan and the terrible things he represented have no place there. Just as they have no place here on the Dragonpit floor, the floor where dragons sleep and Jon’s daughter plays.

“Yes,” Jon agrees. “I am a king. And I am a man of my word.”

He sweeps that section of the dragonpit thrice, and then he gets on his knees and rinses the floor of any lingering remains. Daenerys goes to join him, but he sets a hand on her calf, stilling her.

“Let me,” he requests. _The floor is no place for you._ It should be a crime to have her knelt on Sevan’s behalf, to have her silks sullied in ashy water, to have even the slightest bit of that hideous man’s remains touching her skin.

He feels her eyes on him as he wipes the floor clean. He orders the bin to the wasteyard afterwards, and then he stands. He pulls his cloak off Storm and throws it over his arm, not bothering to put it back on or unroll his sleeves. His wife’s violet eyes make his skin tingle with want as they meet his. She says nothing as she reaches for his hand. Her eyes stay locked on his as she pushes his ring back onto his finger, her hands soft and warm.

“How’s your stomach?” he asks her, his voice so low and gruff it might as well be a growl.

“Settled,” she answers evenly. She pulls on his hand. “Come with me.”

He doesn’t ask where. It doesn’t matter, and she doesn’t have to ask him twice. He follows after her, his heart a blazed beast beating barbarously in his chest. And as soon as they’re tucked away in private, her desire swallows him whole. It feels right to be consumed.

“Let me,” she requests, echoing his earlier words.

It feels right to be her king, too.

IV.

Lyaella’s sitting atop the round table on the balcony when they return home to Rhaella’s Fortress, proudly brandishing a piece of parchment above her head. Strewn all around her on the tabletop are multiple jars of colored ink and sturdy, child-friendly quills. Going by the rainbow of Nona and Temmo’s hands, the children have been drawing and writing for quite some time.

“This is _my_ name,” Lyaella tells Nona and Temmo. The parchment flutters in the light breeze. “ _Muver_ and _Fawder_ teach me.”

Jon’s hand slips from Dany’s as he approaches the table, his eyes trained proudly on the parchment. He adores Lyaella’s clumsy hand and would gladly plaster the Garden in a hundred childish renditions of _Lyaella Targaryen_. His heart always swells with pride at the sight of it, and now is no exception. Her friends don’t seem particularly impressed— Nona regards it with polite interest, and Temmo’s too busy dunking his fingers into a jar of blue ink to notice Lyaella’s careful penning of her own name— but _Jon_ is proud. Lyaella notices his arrival right as he swoops her up into his arms. She tumbles into giggles as he presses smiling kisses to her face.

“You did a _wonderful_ job on your name,” Jon praises, filling the indifferent silence Nona and Temmo left hanging over her. Lyaella rolls over onto her back and flops in his arms, her head hanging over his left arm and her feet dangling limply over his right. Jon lifts her up and loudly kisses her stomach; she squirms gleefully and succumbs to peals of ticklish laughter. Jon laughs with her, and when she surges upright in his arms and hugs him tightly around the neck, both their laughter softens to a smile.

“Daddy!” Lyaella celebrates. She sighs in relief— a tiny, happy sound— and then rests her cheek against his shoulder sweetly. “I miss you.”

He melts quicker than ice set directly in flames. His heart’s a warm puddle as he kisses her braid.

“I missed you, too.”

He glances over at Dany as she joins them. She’s inspecting Lyaella’s parchment, her face glowing with pride, and Jon takes time to look at it, too. He likes to find specific things to praise; that always means more to Lyaella than vague compliments.

“Your ‘y’s are facing the right direction this time, Ly!”

Lyaella lifts her face from his shoulder and twists to look at her name. Jon guesses she hasn’t yet noticed that her mother is here, too; she gasps happily when she sees Daenerys and throws herself towards her. Her mother catches her easily. She’s smiling as she rests her cheek against Lyaella’s scalp and rocks her in her arms.

“It was too long,” Lyaella tells Dany, her words hidden into her mother’s neck. “So long, Mamma.”

At that complaint, Jon glances over to the bench where Arya and Red Fly are perched. He lifts his brows questioningly at Arya, wondering if Lyaella was a terror in their absence, but Arya shakes her head. He’s relieved. Sansa keeps telling him they’re creating a monster with how they coddle Lyaella, that she’ll never be willing to leave their side _ever,_ no matter how old she gets, but Jon doesn’t think she’s right. And if he’s being honest, he’s not sure that’s much of a problem in the first place. He doesn’t _want_ Lyaella to go anywhere. Lord Tyrion made the mistake of casually broaching the topic of betrothals when Prince Quentyn’s new wife announced her pregnancy, but Jon and Dany had silenced that quickly enough. _She’s a baby,_ Jon had said, furious. _And she won’t_ ever _be married off against her will to anyone._ What he didn’t say, of course, is that the prospect of her possibly ending up in Dorne (or anywhere) is too terrible to even consider. She’s the future queen: her place is here in the Garden with her family. And though he and Dany agreed that she would be free to choose her own path— that she could walk away from the Throne if she so wished— Jon knows it’ll be hard for him if that’s what she one day chooses, simply because that choice will likely lead her down paths that wind away from him.

As it stands now, Daenerys— like Jon— doesn’t seem at all interested in ceasing their coddling. She’s cradling Lyaella in her arms like she’s a newborn babe when Jon looks back at them. They’re talking animatedly about Cow One, specifically about the braid they put in his tail yesterday. As they chat, Lyaella strokes her fingers through Dany’s long, loose hair. The flowing silver seems to distract Lyaella. She falls quiet and doesn’t respond to one of Dany’s questions, too intent on the soft waves of her mother’s hair. It’s clear why quickly enough.

“Your _baids_ are gone,” Lyaella says curiously. It’s perceptive of her. And Jon’s certainly not going to tell her why they are. “Is it nap time?”

Dany smiles. She strokes Lyaella’s cheek fondly. “No, lovely. I’m not napping.”

Lyaella twists Dany’s hair lazily, half-braiding it and then letting it unwind. “I think it’s napping time.”

Jon and Dany laugh together.

“You do, do you?”

“Yes,” Lyaella affirms. She muffles a yawn into Dany’s dress.

“I think _you’re_ just sleepy,” Jon teases.

“No, I’m not,” Lyaella lies. “Mamma is.”

“What about your father? Does he need a nap?”

Lyaella looks over at Jon and appraises him. “Yes, he has nap-hair, too.”

Daenerys laughs at that. She steps over towards the table and turns so Lyaella is facing her friends. “Let’s say goodbye to your friends and thank them for playing with you.”

As Lyaella says goodbye to her friends, Daenerys appraises Temmo, whose hands are half blue. He’s strategically dipping each blue finger in purple ink now, mixing the colors with fierce concentration.

“We gave up on that one,” Red Fly calls over to her, resigned. “We’re just glad he’s not trying to scale the balcony railing anymore.”

“Temmo,” Daenerys calls. Temmo snaps his eyes to her at once. His expression morphs to something that can only be described as adoring as Daenerys says something to him in Dothraki. He nods.

“ _Sek, Khaleesi_ ,” he says without hesitation. The smile that follows is beyond sweet. He sets about cleaning up the mess he made with the ink, not one complaint uttered or one foot stomped.

Jon glances back at Arya and Red Fly. Judging by how they’re both scowling, this is very different from how he behaved with them.

_“How_?” Red Fly demands. 

“Your hair’s not long enough,” Daenerys tells them, shrugging. “He doesn’t take you seriously.” She reaches up and tugs gently on Jon’s curls. “You either.”

“My fends are nice,” Lyaella tells them. She squirms in Daenerys’s arms until she sets her down at the table. “I will hep you, Temmo.”

“Okay,” he agrees, smiling. He’s sweet enough now as they work together to wipe up the ink that dripped onto the table, but Jon still remembers how he’d thrown Lyaella’s rolled-up blankets earlier that morning. He finds he’s holding a grudge on his daughter’s behalf, which is ridiculous because children do things like that all the time. But it rubbed him the wrong way.

“So you’ve forgiven him for throwing your eggs?” Jon asks Lyaella.

Lyaella’s smile disappears instantaneously.

“No,” she says darkly. “That was _naudy_.”

Daenerys elbows Jon. “Don’t get them started again.”

“Just curious,” he says innocently.

“Hmm,” she comments, but she says nothing else about it. She stands right over Lyaella and Temmo and supervises them as they clean. Jon chats with quiet Nona about her drawing— it appears to be a rainbow-colored river— and then takes her to Annet when she arrives. He thanks Annet for letting her spend the afternoon with Lyaella, and Lyaella makes her own gratitude known as she squeezes Nona in an affectionate hug. Jassi, Temmo’s mother, arrives soon after with Ezhi, and the two sisters laugh with Daenerys for a bit before finally taking Temmo home.

As soon as Lyaella’s friends are gone, Arya flops face-down on the couch.

“I am _never_ having children,” she tells them, though the way she adores Lyaella makes Jon question that declaration.

“Me neither,” Red Fly agrees, and then he laughs at his own joke. Arya smacks his hip with a pillow.

“I was far too hard on Septa Mordane,” Arya continues. “She had the worst job in the Seven Kingdoms. I’ll gladly watch Lyaella any time you ask, but I will never again host a royal playdate, so don’t ask.”

Jon glances over towards his daughter to make sure Arya’s comment hasn’t hurt her feelings, but she’s not listening to them. She’s sitting on the balcony bench with Daenerys, showing her all the drawings she and her friends made in her parents’ absence. Jon turns back to his sister.

“Noted. And thank you for today, Arya. And you too, Red Fly. Did Lyaella have a good time, at least?”

“Oh, a _great_ time,” Arya affirms. “She only cried for you and Daenerys once.” She sees his frown. “Once is nothing. And she settled quickly enough once I promised you’d be back soon.”

He’d prefer her not to cry at all; her sadness is unacceptable to him, even as he knows it’s sometimes unavoidable.

“Jon,” Daenerys calls, and something in her tone makes his stomach clench. He turns immediately. She beckons him over when he meets her eyes, and he obliges. He sits beside her on the bench; Lyaella’s still chattering on about her friends, indifferent to her mother’s concerned frown, but her worry is the most obvious thing in the world to Jon. He assumes the worst: he scans his eyes down Daenerys’s body, searching for some sign of discomfort or pain (or even blood), but she looks perfectly fine.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

She sets her hand on a piece of paper resting face-down on her lap. When she turns it over, Jon leans against her side and peers down at it. At first, it just appears to be a whorl consuming the parchment, an imaginative doodle made in a child’s clumsy hand. But as Jon continues looking, he sees the whorl is closer to a spiral; it’s made up of dozens of different shapes penned in black ink with a red outline, the shapes arranged carefully to create each individual curve that circles around, one in front of the other, creating the overt spiral pattern. It tugs at Jon’s memory. He takes the parchment from Dany’s lap and turns it slowly, following the shapes with his eyes.

“Our sigil?” he whispers uneasily.

He wants to believe that’s what it is. And if he holds the paper diagonally and peers at it in a certain way, it does slightly resemble it.

But there’s no grouping of shapes in the near-center where the body of the dragon should be, and there’s no distinction between the spiraling at the upper left, where the dragon’s heads would be, and the bottom right, where the tails and wings would curve around. Instead, the shapes are deliberately placed equal-lengths apart in each curve, and each curve is the same distance from the one above and beneath it, curving around to create a perfectly balanced spiral. It’s entirely symmetrical.

His heart beats low and heavy in his chest. At the back of his mind, he knows what this is, but he must hear it from Lyaella to believe it.

“I don’t think it’s our sigil,” Daenerys murmurs, careful not to interrupt Lyaella’s ongoing story. She locks eyes with Jon. “To me, it looks similar to those symbols you showed me in the cave on Dragonstone.”

That isn’t the first image that came to Jon’s head, but it’s still correct. He and Daenerys are thinking of the same thing, just in different memories. She’s picturing the spirals on the cave wall, and he’s thinking of blood-stained snow, of horse parts hacked and arranged in a spiral not unlike this one. He’s thinking of Tormund’s voice as he described little Ned Umber’s body, dismembered and nailed to the wall. _Spiral-like, y’know,_ Tormund had said gravely. And nothing more needed to be said because Jon did know. He does know. He and Tormund had seen it before.

“Lyaella, tell me about this drawing,” Jon asks, his eyes still sweeping over her creation. He touches a longer shape near the bottom of the spiral; it’s almost an oval, though some edges are sharp. “What’s this?”

Lyaella looks over at him, and when she sees the drawing, she gasps dramatically.

“ _No!”_ she says, upset. “Temmo left it! It’s Temmo’s! Mamma, can we take it to Ezhi? Can we, Mamma?!”

“In a bit,” Daenerys says. “You made this for Temmo? Why? What is it?”

She looks at it again, but her eyes skate over it quickly, almost as if she doesn’t want to look directly at it. She looks at Jon’s hands instead.

“I show him the ice circles,” she tells them.

Jon and Daenerys hold each other’s gaze for a beat. Then Jon stands, restless with worry. He paces in front of the bench a couple of times, and then he tightens his hand around the parchment, nearly enough to crumple it. He forces himself to ease the tension in his fingers. He turns and walks over towards Lyaella, kneeling in front of her. She looks at him, her gray eyes wide and innocent. Sweet. Jon places her drawing into her lap.

“Lyaella, I want to know all about this. Can you tell me what the red is? I see red here, and here, and here…” he touches the red outlines on the various shapes. “What’s this red for?”

She points at the blank parts of the parchment. “This is snow. _Awa_ didn’t give me white.”

Arya must hear her name; she and Red Fly abandon their conversation and walk over at Lyaella’s accusatory tone. Arya knows what Lyaella’s talking about at once.

“There’s _no_ white ink to give you, Lyaella,” Arya says, her tone indicating she’s said this many times. She looks at Jon. “ _This_ is when she cried for you. As if you and Daenerys could magically make white ink appear…I’m just the world’s most terrible, horrible auntie, aren’t I, Lyaella?”

Lyaella frowns deeply at that. “No! No, _Awa_! You’re good!” She scampers off the bench and runs over, throwing her arms around Arya’s legs. She hugs her tightly.

“I don’t think she was truly crying about the ink,” Daenerys tells Arya, voicing what Jon’s already thinking. “This is a drawing of her ice circles.”

Arya’s lips part in surprise. “ _Oh_ ,” she realizes.

“Come back to the bench, Lyaella. We want to talk about the ice circles,” Daenerys says.

Going by how evasive Lyaella’s being, she doesn’t _want_ to talk about them. She tugs on Arya’s hand incessantly until Arya leans down enough that she can kiss her, and then she turns her affections towards Red Fly. Red Fly accepts her hugs, but after two, he lifts her up and carries her back to the bench, setting her down in front of Jon again. Jon returns her drawing to her lap.

“The red?” he presses.

She points again at the blank spaces, but Daenerys cuts her off. “That’s _snow_ , yes?”

Lyaella smiles. “Yes! Good job, Mamma.”

Daenerys smiles back, but it’s thin and distracted. “The blank part is snow, okay. Now what about the red part your father’s pointing at?”

Lyaella’s eyes rove up towards the sky. She smiles brightly. “Moonboom!”

Jon doesn’t even look up. “We’ll see her after supper. The red is…?”

Lyaella leans towards Jon. She falls into his lap and hides her face against his neck. “I’m _seepy_.”

Jon’s certain both he and Daenerys already know what it is, but if they outright ask Lyaella if it’s that, she might say _yes_ just to be done with the conversation. Or just to agree; she often chooses to go along with the people she loves even when she’s not strictly certain what it is they’re talking about. He needs to hear it from her.

“Please tell me, Ly,” Jon pleads quietly. He kisses her hair and hugs her warmly. “It’s okay. We just want to know more. Mother and I have seen these before. We’ve seen the ice circles.”

Lyaella sits up in his lap. She looks at him with surprise. “You did?”

“Yes,” he affirms. He catches her little hand as it goes towards his beard. He kisses her palm. “Tell me what the red is, and I’ll tell you if that’s what I thought it was. It’s like a game.”

She considers that. She pulls thoughtfully at his beard once he releases her hand. “Okay,” she decides. She avoids his eyes, focusing instead on his beard as if she thinks she can trim it with her gaze alone. “It’s _bud._ ”

Jon looks directly at Daenerys. She nods once, her mouth set in a firm line.

“That’s what I thought it was,” Jon admits, working hard to keep his voice casual. “I thought it was blood.”

“Good job, Daddy,” Lyaella praises.

“Now what about these shapes here? What are they?”

He fears Lyaella’s going to deflect again. She drops her fingers to his neck, pressing over a mark Daenerys left with innocent curiosity.

“Ow,” she says. She pats his neck sympathetically. “Poor Daddy.”

“It’s fine,” Jon dismisses. “What are these shapes?”

She presses harder over the mark, lining her thumb up with it.

“Does it hurt?” she asks him.

“No, it doesn’t hurt,” Jon answers, withholding a sigh. “It’s just a bruise.”

He’s trying not to be impatient with her, but it’s difficult. She leans in and presses a feather-light kiss to the mark on his neck, much more concerned about that than the symbol she drew.

“All better,” she tells him sweetly.

“Thank you for the kiss. Yes, all better. Now tell me about these shapes.”

She sighs heavily as if _she’s_ trying not to be impatient with _him_. She sits taller in his lap and reaches for his hair. As she begins braiding a section of his curls, he thinks it’s all over. He’s certain there’s no way he’s going to get any more answers from her. But she surprises him.

“It’s meat,” she says, her eyes still on his hair. It’s quiet for a couple of seconds, and then she looks up at him and meets his eyes. “Meat’s not good. I don’t like it.”

Part of him is desperate to know everything. He wants to ask her what _kind_ of meat it is, whether it’s parts from cows or horses or people, but he doesn’t want to upset her. He knows the important things: it’s some dismembered creature, and her ice circles have something to do with the Others. Though how that could be, he’s unsure. That’s a foe he, her mother, and her aunt already conquered. That’s the enemy that brought him and her mother together in the first place. 

Lyaella reaches up and holds his face between her little hands. She peers at him seriously.

“Can we nap now?”

Jon kisses her nose. “Yes. We can nap now.”

She waits until the three of them are settled in Jon and Daenerys’s bed to mention the drawing again.

“Can we give it to Ezhi? For Temmo?”

“Soon,” Jon answers. Her ear is resting over the scar covering his heart. “I want to show Tormund first. Let’s hold onto it until he visits.”

“Tormud? Why?”

“I think he’ll like it.”

“Oh,” Lyaella says. Jon feels her smile. “He can have it.”

“I just want him to see it. You can still give it to Temmo, if you like,” Jon assures her.

She yawns against Jon’s tunic. She brings her blanket up and rubs it tiredly against her cheek.

“Daddy?” she asks.

“Hm?”

“Why do I not have one?”

Jon doesn’t understand. “One what? A drawing?”

“No,” she answers. She turns her face and reaches out towards her mother. Jon follows her hand as she sets her fingers against her mother’s breast, right over the place the scar from that dagger is hidden beneath her silks. And then he understands.

“Oh,” he says, but he stops, unsure how to answer. He wonders then if she’s ever noticed that no other adult has that scar. Does she think that’s just a part of every human? To her, if both her mother and father have it, it must be normal. “That’s…” he stops and looks to Dany for help.

Dany grasps Lyaella’s hand and lifts it from her chest. She holds it beside her own, facing both her palm and Lyaella’s towards their daughter for Lyaella to examine.

“What’s different?” Dany asks her.

“I’m more little,” Lyaella answers at once. Jon and Dany smile.

“What else?” Daenerys presses.

Lyaella moves her hand and touches the long scar intersecting Dany’s palm. She trails her finger over the bumps and ridges of it.

“I used to have a cut there,” Daenerys explains. “A very bad one.”

“With _bud_?”

“A lot of blood,” Daenerys confirms. “Auntie Arya stitched it closed.”

Lyaella lifts her blanket up and looks at Sansa’s most recent repair job. Jon thinks the connection is clever of her, and he leans his face down and hides his smile into her soft curls as he kisses her hair.

“Yes, just like the stitches Auntie Sansa does in your blanket,” Daenerys affirms, smiling too. “Only she stitched my skin rather than fabric. My skin grew closed again, and that’s what left the scar. Sort of like with your blanket: if you tear it, Sansa can stitch the two pieces back together, but there’s still that line of stitches where it was fixed.”

Lyaella’s so intrigued by this topic that she pushes her exhaustion away. She reaches eagerly for Dany’s other hand. Dany lifts it off Jon’s hip and holds it out for Lyaella to examine. Lyaella looks from Dany’s right hand to her left, studying every inch of her scars closely. Then she looks up at Jon. She touches the scar over his left eye.

“Did Awa _sits_ it?”

Jon laughs. “No, Auntie Arya didn’t stitch this one.”

Her hand touches his heart. “This one?”

“No, not that one, either. But she did stitch Mother’s. That’s partially why her scar is prettier than mine.”

Lyaella looks back at her mother. “What hurt you?”

That question is far too loaded to address fully right now. Not at Lyaella’s age. Thankfully, Dany thinks the same.

“Your father and I got hurt a long time ago, and we were bleeding over our hearts. It left a scar, but we’re better now, and our scars don’t hurt. You won’t ever have a scar like us because you won’t get hurt like us.”

Lyaella holds Dany’s left hand between both of hers. Her love for her mother is so deep that even a gesture as simple as that leaks affection.

“Not in the ice circle?” she asks them.

“No,” Jon and Daenerys chorus, their voices firm.

“Not there,” Daenerys promises.

“Not anywhere.”

That seems to comfort her. She settles back down, and Jon rubs her back as she drifts towards sleep. She doesn’t let go of Daenerys’s hand. Right before her breathing evens out completely, Daenerys turns onto her side to face them again.

“Lyaella? When you saw the ice circles, were you little like you are now? Or bigger— like me?”

Jon hadn’t thought to ask that, but as soon as Daenerys does, he realizes that’s possibly the most important question they’ve asked Lyaella all day.

“We’re big,” Lyaella answers sleepily. “Me and Aemon and _Way_.”

“Oh, I see,” Daenerys says. Lyaella yawns. Daenerys lifts their joined hands and kisses the back of Lyaella’s. “Goodnight, my dear heart. You can sleep now. No more questions.”

As Lyaella dreams, Jon rests with his eyes closed, worry stitching through his heart. He finds Lyaella’s answer about being ‘big’ doesn’t bring him much relief at all, even though it likely means they won’t have to deal with that threat again for decades more. In fact, if she’s so old in those visions that he and Dany are decrepit or gone, that’s even worse. He’d rather hear that white walkers are marching on King’s Landing that very moment than think he might be leaving his children to face that threat alone. _Not alone,_ he corrects himself. _They’ll have each other. They’ll just be without me_.

That thought is harder to shoulder than any other. _I must protect them,_ he thinks, _but how can I protect them if I’m dead?_

He holds Lyaella closer to his heart.

V.

It’s the most beautiful day Bran’s experienced in a long while.

He angles his face towards the sun, enjoying the warmth of it against his skin and the balanced coolness of the breeze. He hears Jon’s daughter giggling in the distance, and the floral sweetness clinging to each breeze fills Bran’s heart with contentment. All the gods old and new couldn’t have devised a more perfect day, though he supposes he’s not hard to impress: he loves to be outdoors, particularly in the sunshine. And the Memorial Garden is the best place of all. He often lets Alf trot around the Garden for hours on end, taking him from plaque to plaque, content to be alone with his memories. That’s what he’s most used to having as company: memories. All those years spent a prisoner inside his own head…that’s all there was in the dark, in the night. In the quiet. Ghosts and recollections. And here is where ghosts and recollections gather.

Today, though, his little niece insisted on keeping him company. She trotted alongside him all morning on her own horse, quiet and happy, her eyes— _Stark eyes,_ Bran always thinks fondly— traveling from plant to plant with deep interest. Beyond asking Bran the name of certain bushes or flowers, she was peaceful company, especially for one so young. It’s unsurprising, though: Bran noticed long ago that she seems to know how to make everyone feel at ease. She’s playful with Arya, bright and inquisitive with Sansa, sweet and affectionate with Ser Davos. She’s made up of as many facets as the stained glass chamber in Rhaella’s Fortress, and she seems to know how to direct her light at each specific face depending on who she’s with. _The skill of a queen,_ Sansa said once, when she and Bran discussed that very thing. And he had to agree. Sometimes, at night, when invading memories that belong to a foreign head creep upon him, he sees someone he thinks is her wearing a crown. He never knows for certain whether it’s her or another Targaryen queen, though. He tries to look at the woman’s eyes— to see if they’re Stark eyes— but the vision is never clear enough.

Alf follows the sound of Princess Lyaella’s giggles, eventually stopping them at the blanket stretched out beside Ned Stark’s tree. Bran’s brother is already pouring over a thick stack of parchment with Queen Daenerys while Lyaella and Emmati ‘braid’ Cow One’s mane. Emmati smiles at Bran as he brings Alf alongside Cow One, and he smiles back. In the sunshine, her dark hair shines, and every now and then, Bran can smell the spiced oil in her hair. It’s a familiar smell. She works in the stables, and Bran sees her often. She’s a horse healer, and a magnificent one at that, especially considering she’s young like Bran. She was the one who saved Alf a year ago when his leg was badly injured. Bran hasn’t wanted anyone else but her to tend to Alf since then, and she’s quickly earned the same place in Lyaella’s heart after nursing Cow One back to excellent health. It helps that Emmati is as fond of Cow One as Lyaella is: she nearly always accompanies the princess when she takes Cow One out for a ride. And though healing is her undeniable specialty, the braids she’s currently weaving in Cow One’s mane are impressive.

“That looks very nice,” Bran tells Lyaella.

She smiles, pleased. She turns towards him.

“Look, Ban, Em gave me these!” Lyaella opens her little hand for him. She has a palmful of tiny silver bells, the kind Bran has seen in the Dothraki men’s hair. Emmati told him once that each bell stands for one victory; he can’t help but wonder where she found so many bells, and if she’ll get in trouble for taking them.

“What are you going to do with all those?” Bran asks. He looks at Emmati, but she avoids his eyes. She’s smiling as she continues braiding Cow One’s mane. “Are you going to win…” he quickly counts the bells in Lyaella’s palm, “fifteen battles today?”

“Not _me_ ,” she tells him. “Cow One!”

“Oh,” Bran says. He looks at the horse, who grows lazier and more pampered each day. “Yes, that makes much more sense.”

Emmati laughs at that, and Bran beams.

“Bran,” Daenerys calls, and Bran reluctantly tears his eyes from Emmati to look back at her. Ghost is snoozing now, his head heavy on Daenerys’s lap; Bran’s surprised her legs haven’t fallen asleep from the weight of him. “Did you see Arya this morning?”

Bran shakes his head. “No, we didn’t practice this morning. Last night she said she wanted to sleep in.”

A disappointment, really: Bran loves practicing archery with Arya. He feels more normal then than he feels at any other point, and he’s still great at it. He’s been hoping lately that one day he’ll be able to compete in tourneys.

“She wasn’t at breakfast.” Daenerys seems troubled. She stops scratching behind Ghost’s scarred ear and looks at Jon. Ghost huffs unhappily at the loss of her attention. “She doesn’t ever sleep that late.”

“If she doesn’t show up with the rest of the council, we’ll send for her,” Jon reassures Daenerys.

Her absence is a bit troubling. It’s rare that Arya isn’t out and about with them. She’s with the king and queen so often that Bran has heard handmaidens whispering amongst themselves, curious about the nature of Arya’s relationship with the Targaryens. Given Targaryen history, Bran understands their suspicions, though he knows the love Arya and the Targaryens share is pure. Forged in fire, perhaps— but steady and honest.

“All right,” Daenerys agrees, still worried. Bran doesn’t miss how Jon sets his hand on her stomach as he kisses her, his touch tender and protective. Although she’s not showing, and although neither Jon nor his wife have made any sort of announcement, Bran knows she’s pregnant. It’s hard to miss. Ghost hovers worse than Jon does (an impressive feat given how Jon fusses over her), her eating habits are bizarre, and she gets sick often. And he’s not the only one who’s noticed: the prospect of another child has the Garden abuzz with excitement, though everyone is careful not to discuss it where Jon or Daenerys might hear.

Though the rest of the small council has yet to arrive, the king and queen begin discussing the items on today’s agenda. The meeting was called here to the Memorial Garden rather than the council chambers for Lyaella’s benefit: they wanted to give her a chance to ride Cow One and enjoy the fresh air. Bran’s certain the relocation of the meeting will have upset Lord Tyrion, and he’s right: when the rest of the council finally arrives, Lord Tyrion’s huffing.

“Do you know how long of a walk that was for me?” he greets them. “We could’ve covered three items on our agenda in the time it took.”

Daenerys doesn’t even look up from the parchment. “You knew how far it was. Why didn’t you take a horse?”

He ignores that question. He takes a cloth bag bursting with letters from Red Fly and drops it onto the blanket beside Jon.

“Hello, Bran,” he greets. Bran nods at him. “Do you want to join us on the blanket?”

“No, thank you,” Bran answers. “I’ll stay here.”

On the blanket, he’ll feel trapped and useless, unable to move much at all. Here on Alf, he can go almost anywhere. He’s as close to free as is possible for him.

Sansa comes to stand at Bran’s side while Lord Tyrion begins sorting papers, passing some to Daenerys and some to Jon, murmuring beneath his breath as he does. Ser Davos arrives shortly after that. He joins the queen and king on the blanket. Yet there’s still no Arya.

“Did you see Arya this morning?” Daenerys asks Sansa.

“Yes,” Sansa says, and Daenerys’s shoulders depress with visible relief. “She had breakfast with me. She said she was tired. I told her I’d send for her if her presence was desperately needed.”

“She seemed all right, though?” Jon questions.

“A bit tired, maybe, but she didn’t look ill if that’s what you mean,” Sansa replies. She sets a brief hand on Bran’s shoulder and then kneels down to join the others on the blanket. Her hair looks so much like their mother’s in the sunlight that it makes Bran heartsick. “Tyrion, are we discussing the roads first?”

“I think, if it’s well with His and Her Grace, that we should reopen discussion about the four men awaiting sentencing in the Trial Cells.”

Daenerys’s fingers tighten around a scroll clutched in her hand. “And what need do we have to reopen discussion? Jon and I made ourselves quite clear yesterday.”

Lord Tyrion exchanges a look with Ser Davos. “As we discussed before, Your Grace, we must be _certain_ we’re punishing based on established laws, not on our own convictions.”

“And we are. Or is rape no longer a crime?”

Tyrion sighs wearily. It’s a weariness they certainly all feel: this has been an ongoing debate all week. Even Bran has tired of it, and he only sits in on perhaps one out of every ten council meetings held.

“All four men _swore_ that Roza told them she was willing, that the brother told them she was a whore,” Tyrion reminds her.

“And all four also admitted that she cried during the fact,” Jon counters. “I don’t know about you, Lord Tyrion, but to me, tears don’t indicate willingness.”

“She never told them not to—”

“She was a little girl terrified of her brother! He would starve her for days if she went against his orders!” Daenerys cries. “Of course she didn’t tell them not to!”

“And you executed the brother for that. But how were those men to know what went on behind the doors of that home? They didn’t even know she was his sister.”

“What man doesn’t recognize that _crying_ means someone is in pain or afraid? I don’t believe for a moment that they were unaware that she was being forced. They knew; they just didn’t care,” Jon snaps. “And she’s a little girl! A little child!”

“Yet flowered,” Tyrion reminds him. He is quick to add onto that comment, backing away from Jon’s rage. “I feel the same way about it as you do. You all know I do. But there is no law stating a man can’t bed a flowered girl. If we want to punish people for bedding girls that young, we first have to make a law to prohibit that. We can’t punish people for laws they didn’t even know existed, and the same goes for the purchasing of whores. You told the brothel owners not to sell, and you told them to close their brothels, but you didn’t go to the public and tell them not to buy. You made it quite clear to the brothel owners; they just didn’t relay the message to their customers as you ordered them to. So, in those four men's eyes, they are free to plead ignorance. They believe they did nothing wrong.”

“And in _your_ eyes, Lord Tyrion, those four men are free all wrongdoing?” Daenerys demands. “We should just let them go?”

Bran wants to retreat away from them. He nearly lifts the reins and leaves. The small council conversations are normally heated but civil; lately, however, things have been tense. So tense that Bran doesn’t even want to witness them, much less participate himself. Roza’s older brother was executed a week ago, and if Jon and Daenerys had their way, the four men would’ve been exiled the day after. But the situation had caught the attention of other former brothel owners, as well as many noblemen fond of brothels. They came to the four prisoners’ defense, stating that there was no law broken and that they should be released at once, and some even cried for the brothels to be reopened. Daenerys and Jon refused both requests.

“There are often no easy answers,” Ser Davos tells both Daenerys and Tyrion. “If we let these four men go, there’s a chance we’re letting violent men back out into the realm, men who lied to avoid punishment for a grievous crime and very well may do the same thing again. If we punish them, though, without knowing they willfully committed the crimes we’re punishing them for, we’re not ruling justly, and we’re going to find ourselves facing quite a mess. The people love you both enough to overlook your foreign religion, but you’ll find this matter one that draws true nastiness from men. If we start executing or exiling every man that sleeps with a Sally, you’ll find yourselves facing a rebellion soon enough. Sansa’s proposition about the brothels makes the most sense to me.”

“And I did not refuse her proposition,” Daenerys reminds Ser Davos. “Yet that proposition is irrelevant when it comes to these four men; their crimes have already occurred. The question now is how to respond to those crimes.” She appears frustrated. “What do you think we should do, Ser Davos?”

“My opinion? We must change the laws to change the world, Your Grace.” He nods over towards Lyaella. Bran follows his gaze. Lyaella’s still busy braiding bells into Cow One’s mane with Emmati, indifferent to the heated debate going on by Ned Stark’s tree. “You wouldn’t decide, for instance, that Lyaella is not allowed to drink honeyed milk once the moon has risen, not tell her of this new rule, and then punish her when she breaks it.”

“No,” Daenerys agrees. “Yet, in this scenario, we would have told the servers that rule, and they would have refused to provide it.”

“In a perfect world, with perfect servers,” Ser Davos says gently.

“That comparison is grossly over-simplifying matters,” Jon protests.

“Yes,” Ser Davos agrees. “And unfortunately, we’re dealing with simple men.”

Bran thinks that’s the only thing everyone there can probably agree on.

“And what of these men? What happens to them? We cannot punish them for visiting a brothel, fine. I recognize that. That wasn’t my intention in the first place. They will be punished for forcing themselves on that girl. They can say they didn’t— all men do— but she told us she was crying, and they admitted that she was, too. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the typical punishment in Westeros for rape is castration or exile. Is that correct?”

“In the past, yes,” Lord Tyrion affirms. “They would be given the choice between the knife or the Wall. Yet we have no Night’s Watch any longer.”

“Perhaps we should,” Jon says, and that surprises even Bran.

“To watch for…snow?” Sansa asks.

Jon and Daenerys exchange a look that Bran can’t make sense of.

“To keep things running there in case there ever comes a time there’s something more to watch for,” Jon responds shortly. “Lord Tyrion, Daenerys and I have sought exile for these men from the start. You protested.”

“Because if you punish them now, no matter what you say they’re being punished for, it’s going to be viewed as a punishment for visiting a brothel. We don’t want it to seem as if you’re exiling them for the mere act of laying with a whore. Ser Davos is right: that will cause deep trouble very quickly with those already up in arms about the decision to close the brothels. It must be clear and undeniable that they’re being punished for rape, and it must be _stupidly-_ clear that such a crime occurred if we don’t want to risk angering—”

“Let them be angry. I will _not_ allow those men to go unpunished for what they did to Roza.” Daenerys turns to Sansa. “Sansa. What do you think?”

Sansa’s been watching the discussion carefully, yet she’s offered no insight into her own opinion.

“I think Ser Davos is right: there is no easy answer,” she admits. “We’ve already got a lot to manage what with the sickhouses and this sickness— we don’t want to risk inciting a revolt on top of it. We must tread carefully. If we punish them for rape, Tyrion’s right that we must be clear that’s what we’re punishing them for. I know you think my and Lord Tyrion’s previous proposition on the brothel dilemma doesn’t help this issue, Daenerys, but I disagree. I think restructuring and reopening the brothels _will_ help here: it’ll show the past brothel owners and brothel-supporting noblemen that we’re _not_ punishing these four men for visiting one, that we don’t have a vendetta against brothels themselves, only against abuse. It’ll show them we’re punishing these men for a different offense: hurting Roza. And punishing them will also show the people that violence towards the workers within these new brothels will _not_ be tolerated.”

Bran’s not sure what to make of her response. She’s going directly against what Lord Tyrion is arguing for in this conversation and supporting what Daenerys and Jon are seeking, yet at the same time, she’s made a strong case for her and Tyrion’s previous proposition for reopening the brothels for the sake of taxation (just with the owners cut out of it and each woman her own employer.) She’s tied both issues together so tightly that it makes perfect sense to Bran; he finds himself utterly convinced that the only way to safely punish those four men, who should be punished, without causing a riot is by reopening the brothels.

“You make a good point,” Tyrion tells Sansa. “I didn’t think about how punishing those men might provide benefit for the safety and success of our reimplemented brothels. It’s brilliant, actually: we’ll be condoning violence while also showing our dedication to the safety of the women who _choose_ to be there.”

Things are less muddy for Bran, but Daenerys still looks frustrated and unhappy. Or perhaps she’s just unwell: her arm is laying over her stomach, and she looks a bit peaky.

“Except Roza was _not_ a whore,” Daenerys reminds them all sharply. “She was a girl sold as a bedslave by her own brother. We’re talking about making her suffering some stage for political maneuver, some statement about brothels and whores…but that’s not what that situation was about. This was a girl being enslaved and manipulated…how can we be certain that won’t happen again to another young girl as it did to her? That she won’t be forced to pretend she’s willing?”

“That’s where our regulation comes in,” Sansa answers. “This won’t be an overnight endeavor. To do this properly, we must come up with a well-structured plan…one that emphasizes safety.”

Daenerys crosses her arms over her stomach. She definitely looks like she might be sick. Bran admires how she pushes through it.

“I want a minimum age established. I don’t want to _ever_ see a little girl sobbing in Maester Aethelwyne’s chambers for reasons like this ever again.”

“Shall we begin discussions on the specifics for the brothels tomorrow?” Sansa asks.

“Yes. Or sooner,” Daenerys decides.

For a second, Bran’s certain she’s going to vomit: her eyes flutter shut and her arms tighten around her middle. Sansa discreetly scoots away from her, eyeing her warily. But she doesn’t. Jon’s arm goes around his wife in comfort, and when Daenerys lays her head on his shoulder, it makes Bran feel an unexpected wave of deep loneliness. He looks away, his throat tight.

“It’s just my opinion, Your Grace, but I believe one of our next steps should be to closely examine our laws,” Ser Davos voices. “They should reflect the vision you have for this world, not echo the ways of the past. It will be a long undertaking.”

“When Queen Alysanne and King Jaehaerys last revised Westeros’s laws, it took them decades,” Tyrion agrees.

“Then we better get to work,” Daenerys says firmly. She turns towards Bran unexpectedly and meets his eyes. “Bran, what do _you_ think? Do you think exiling them is the right choice?”

Bran’s taken aback. “I don’t know much about—”

“You know more than any of us here.”

It’s sometimes true. Bloodraven left what feels like huge voids in his mind— carved out pits where Bloodraven himself had once been, where his memories and information had been housed, where things had been shaved and stolen from Bran to make room for Bloodraven— and while Bloodraven is gone, Bran still has access to faint remnants of Bloodraven’s essence: flashes of knowledge he shouldn’t be able to know, memories he had never lived through, opinions he had never had, things that haven’t happened yet, things that happened centuries ago. When he gets flashes of those things, his knowledge can be infinite.

But he has no control over what information comes to him or when it does. Maester Aethelwyne told him they’re a side-effect of the trauma his brain experienced, that he’ll probably always experience it, that it’s a way for his mind to make sense of what he went through. But Bran doesn’t think of it that way. To him, it’s like the weight of Bloodraven’s memories and knowledge left an imprint on Bran’s mind. Ghosts of all the things he knew before, like a hazy memory from a long-ago childhood.

He doesn’t tell anyone how frightening it can be, how confusing. It’s not even close to how painful and horrifying it was when it was _truly_ Lord Bloodraven, but it makes him feel broken all the same. It’s not fair that an evil man stole his ability to walk, and now another evil man stole his peace of mind. He just wants to be _Bran_ — only Bran— but that’s impossible with all this _otherness_ in his brain.

Right now, he doesn’t think he has any access to any information that’ll make his opinion worth any value. He tries to dip into those voids in his mind, but it hurts, and he stops trying.

“I don’t know,” he admits. He rubs between his eyebrows, pained. “I think maybe Sansa is right. And I agree with you, Naerys: I don’t think those men are innocent.”

It’s silent after he speaks. He sees Lord Tyrion and Ser Davos exchange an odd look. Sansa's, Jon’s, and Daenerys’s eyes weigh on him. _Did I say something stupid? Something wrong_? he wonders.

“Daenerys,” Jon says. It takes Bran a second to realize he’s correcting him. Bran feels a surge of embarrassment.

“Sorry,” he says quickly, his cheeks warming. “Yes. I agree with you, Daenerys. They should be punished. Exiling them is usually what’s done…isn’t it?”

He’s doubting everything suddenly. It’s the second time this week he’s called Daenerys the wrong name. It’s always Naerys, though he’s not sure why: if he tries to recall information about who Naerys is or was, he doesn’t outright know anything about her at all. If there’s reason for why his brain is choosing that name, he doesn’t know it. He makes mistakes like that often. Each mistake is more embarrassing and frustrating than the last, especially when he can’t even explain to anyone why he’s making the mistakes that he makes.

“I’m sorry,” he says again.

“No, there’s nothing to apologize for,” Daenerys reassures him. “It’s okay.”

He nods, his jaw clenched tightly. _They understand. They don’t care,_ he tries to assure himself. But no one _really_ understands. And no one ever will. People like to tell him that he’s brave and strong for surviving the things he survived, but he’s never felt less brave and less strong in his entire life. He felt he could move mountains when he was young; now, he can’t even command his own tongue.

He thinks he’ll go back to Winterfell soon. He’d planned on staying here at least another fortnight— he’d told Jon he would— but he longs for the quiet solitude of Winterfell, for Meera’s companionship. She understands better than anyone. And the fewer people he’s around, the less chance he has of accidentally upsetting someone or saying something embarrassing. He can, for a time, pretend that he has some pride left.

He doesn’t process a word of the rest of the small council’s discussion. He’s not even sure what the final decision is on those four men. He strokes Alf’s neck and turns his focus to the sun, trying to remember why he’d found the day so beautiful. Trying to remember himself.

Cow One jingles softly as he trots, each movement he makes melodic thanks to the fifteen bells braided into his mane. Bran looks up at the sound. It’s painful to find a smile, but he finds one, and he gives it to Lyaella as she comes up beside him.

“They talk so long,” Lyaella complains.

That comment tickles Bran; he laughs softly despite everything, and Emmati’s tinkling laughter mingles with his.

“They’re speaking of adult things, _khalakka_ ,” Emmati tells Lyaella. “Those things take time.” She taps Lyaella’s nose playfully. Lyaella laughs. “I have to go back to the stables to check Perry’s leg.” Emmati lowers her voice conspiratorially. “Do you want me to bring you back some figs?”

Lyaella’s face lights up. “ _Yes!_ ” she cries. She claps her hands together gleefully, but her excitement dampens seconds later. “Oh,” she remembers sadly. “I can’t. Daddy says no more for this day. But Mamma…Mamma eats _pattonfoot_ and dates and that’s all!”

“ _Really_?” Emmati gasps. “She does?”

“Yes! She is sick, but not the dying-sick. But I am sick of meat too.”

“Then you should probably have more figs,” Emmati nods.

“Yes,” Lyaella agrees solemnly. She must miss the part where Emmati’s trying to sneak her some _despite_ her parents, because she lifts Cow One’s reins and trots right over to the Targaryens. “Mamma, I want figs…I’m sick too…”

While she debates the benefits of figs before supper, Bran glances over at Emmati. She’s grinning fondly at the princess, amused.

“You weren’t really going to sneak her figs, were you?” Bran asks. He’s certain that’s…something like treason. Maybe? If the queen and king forbade it?

“Were you going to tell your brother if I did?” she asks.

He has to think about that.

“I guess it would depend on how many you brought her,” he admits.

That makes her laugh again. He doesn’t often make people laugh anymore. It feels so nice that he can’t help but smile.

“How many would be too many?”

“…Ten?” He has no idea. Lyaella’s stomach must be so tiny… “Maybe five, actually.”

“Why?” She’s smiling, as bemused as she is amused. _Her skin glows,_ Bran thinks, catching himself looking at her for longer than he’d intended.

“Because too many will make her sick. That’s why they don’t want her eating so many in the first place,” he finally answers.

“I think people know for themselves when too much is too much. We eat when we enjoy it and stop when we don’t. Life without freedom is life without pleasure.” She takes two steps forward, bringing her to Alf’s side. She strokes him; her smile is calm. “Goodbye, Alf. I’ll see you soon, Lord Stark.”

She reaches up, and Bran assumes she’s going to wave goodbye to Lyaella. But she brings her hand forward instead, setting it on Bran’s. She turns his over and presses her palm to his, and when she steps back, he feels something cool and round left behind. She’s already walking away as he looks down at the tiny silver bell in his hand.

He doesn’t understand. Bells are for victory. He’s only known loss.

Yet he keeps it all the same. He tucks it into an inner pocket of his doublet, and every time it chimes as he rides, it brings a smile to his face.

VI.

“Our next item to discuss is the Conclave’s most recent report on the sickness, herein referred to as Spring Fever. Grand Maester Aethelwyne has asked us to meet with her during supper tonight to go over it in detail. In summary, however, the Conclave praises Your Graces for your ‘superior response’ thus far. Your sickhouses, they say, have enabled your population to remain much healthier than in times past, which is aiding them in better resisting Spring Fever. Your choice to quarantine those with fevers in one specific location has provided further protection for the healthy, and allowed more targeted care for the sick. They praised my and Lady Sansa’s sewer system, too…oh, they’ve even praised the diet…that’s got to be a first…and they say their most recent medicine has healed three people thus far. Not an overwhelming amount, but better than zero, I suppose…are you all right, Your Grace?”

Daenerys doesn’t open her eyes. She’s decided discussing their kingdom is much more enjoyable lying on her back beneath the sun with her head resting on Jon’s arm and her daughter asleep at her side. It’s been an excruciatingly long meeting thus far; she first reclined due to her nausea, the choice either that or vomiting, but her stomach has since settled; still, she’s in no rush to sit up just yet. The comfort of the sun and Jon make this last stretch much more bearable. 

“I’m fine, Lord Tyrion. I’m listening to every word. What is next?”

“Next is…” he trails off. He chuckles. The sound drags Daenerys’s eyes open. “Here. See for yourself.”

She reluctantly sits up. She feels Jon’s hand at her hip as she reaches forward, taking the offered letter from Tyrion. She takes one look at her name on the outside of it and passes it back to Lord Tyrion. She reclines once more, resting her head on Jon’s chest this time.

“Spare me,” she says. “Am I right to assume it’s more of the same?”

She hears the parchment rustle slightly as Tyrion unfolds it. “Yes. And he doesn’t seem likely to stop.”

She cares little.

“Let him write so many letters his fingers cramp up, if he must. It changes nothing. His place is in Meereen; there is no need for him to journey so far for a meeting. As we have already told him, I will not risk him bringing this sickness— this Spring Fever— back to Essos with him.”

Jon’s hand tightens against her hip, dragging her body to his side. She turns her face so she can look up at him. His eyes are still closed, but she is certain he’s listening.

“The Commander of the Second Sons,” Jon states, rather than asks.

He knows what his name is. Daenerys finds his pettiness deeply amusing, though she chooses to ignore it for the time being. She’ll tease him tonight and tease him well.

“Yes, Daario Naharis, the Commander of the Second Sons and…” Lord Tyrion trails off, clearly thinking better of what he was about to say. They hear it anyway. Jon’s hand flexes against Daenerys’s hip, his grip tightening briefly. “He says your concerns about Spring Fever are unwarranted as he will simply not return to Essos should he fall ill.”

Daenerys scowls. “Inform him once more that those with Spring Fever often feel perfectly fine up until the evening they die. He would not know whether he was taking that sickness back to Essos until it was too late.” She’s irritated. “Add as well that one cannot hack and cut their way through disease.”

“He insists it’s paramount that you two speak face-to-face,” Tyrion continues. “He writes that the situation in Dragon’s Bay is ‘more complicated than I have ink at hand to transcribe’.”

“See to it that we send Daario Naharis a crate of ink, then, to aid him in his transcriptions.”

Lord Tyrion stifles a yawn. “Perhaps he’s right. Take our meeting today: had we attempted to discuss these matters through ravens, it would have taken half a year. Conversations can be much more productive, especially if the matter is truly as complicated as he makes it sound.”

Daenerys is unwilling to consider it. She remembers well the way the bloody flux took Astapor and later seeped into Meereen despite her best efforts. She won’t subject her children back in Essos to this sickness if she can help it.

And even if this Spring Fever was already cured and gone, she wouldn’t wish for Daario’s presence in Westeros. She’s certain his intentions towards her are not as innocent as his letters make it seem. She knows him well: he’s a man of boldness, not of honor. He would think nothing of trying to seduce his way into Daenerys’s bed, and she’s certain that her husband would not take kindly to that, no matter how unsuccessful those attempts would undoubtedly be. It’s better for Essos and Westeros that Daario stay right where he is. Better for her, too. She takes a moment to listen to Jon’s heart as it thrums within his chest, and then she glances down at their daughter, sleeping sweetly at her side. Somewhere beneath Jon’s arm as it lays heavy over her hips, their son is here, buried deep within her womb. She is whole here with them, with the last of the dragons. Happy. She does not need Daario’s sword or service, nor the strife he’ll undoubtedly bring with him.

“We will not host him for a meeting. Make that clear in your response,” Daenerys orders. She hears someone approaching; when she opens her eyes, she’s glad to see it’s Ser Davos and Sansa. They met Grey Worm at the edge of the Memorial Garden to relay their decision on the four prisoners. Now that they’re back, they can hopefully finish up the day’s unbelievably long meeting.

“Ser Davos,” Lord Tyrion greets, holding Daario’s letter out. “Daario Naharis again.”

Ser Davos takes the letter. His eyes narrow slightly as he reads.

“No,” he decides, passing the letter back to Lord Tyrion. “Bad idea.” He looks over at Jon and Daenerys. “Red Fly had Ezhi go to Arya’s chambers as you asked, Your Graces. She wasn’t there.”

That draws Daenerys’s body upright at once. She rises to her feet, her stomach roiling so intensely that she has to take a minute to breathe through it. She doesn’t know if it’s her nausea or her concern that’s causing it. Going by how her heart has squeezed and folded within her chest, it’s her concern.

“I’m going to look for her,” Daenerys decides. She sees Jon rise to his feet from the corner of her eye. When he touches her hip, she turns and looks at him. “It’s not like her, Jon. I know her. It’s not like her.”

She’s missed plenty of small council meetings before, but she’s _never_ missed them with no word given. She always sees them in the morning, usually in their chambers or at breakfast, and she wasn’t there today. Her absence was glaring and bruising; Daenerys hadn’t realized how routine it had become to chat with her in the first light of day until she wasn’t there to talk to.

“Perhaps she’s run off like Lyanna,” Sansa says. It’s clearly a joke, as that’s what Sansa seems to think that Arya _should_ do, but Arya has been stubborn when it comes to marriage. “Father always did say they were so alike.”

Daenerys is ready to rebuke that statement, worried enough that her rebuttal might not be so polite, but Jon beats her to it.

“She wouldn’t leave now,” Jon says firmly. Plenty is said as he pulls Daenerys against his side. “She wouldn’t, especially not without saying goodbye. If we have issues left to discuss here, take them to supper: Daenerys and I are going to find Arya.”

Warm relief courses through Daenerys. She turns to bend over and lift sleeping Lyaella into her arms, but Jon’s already scooping her up carefully. She stirs just enough to twist in his arms and nuzzle her face into his neck, and then she drifts back to sleep.

Ghost bounds out from the bushes and trees as they step from the blanket. He comes and goes all day and all night, appearing whenever Daenerys steps from areas he deems as ‘safe’ to shadow her through unsafe places, disappearing when he feels his hovering is no longer necessary. He sank into the brush halfway through their council meeting, slinking off into the shaded greenery. Daenerys appraises his muddy paws as he walks beside them now, wondering where it is he keeps wandering off to.

“Where have you been?” she asks him. He bumps his face into her hand until she scratches behind his ears. “Where do you keep running off to? A direwolf is no more a pet than a dragon, that’s true, but I’ve gotten used to you warming my feet at night.”

She wishes he could speak. He looks up at her with deep, intelligent eyes, red as blood and full of meaning. She’s sure there’s something he wants to say. She can’t sink into his head or convince him to suddenly answer her in the Common Tongue, but she can follow his gaze as he looks pointedly at a copse to their left. And what she sees there pulls her to a complete stop, her heart jamming up her throat in surprise and joy.

“Oh,” she says, stunned. Jon stops at once and follows her gaze. His hand slips from hers as they stare at the wolf. It’s massive, to be sure, but smaller than Ghost, grey rather than white, golden-eyed rather than red-eyed. At first, Daenerys thinks it might just be a large wolf. But as she meets the creature’s eyes— deep as Ghost’s, full of unspoken words— she knows that this is another direwolf.

“A mate?” she guesses. She can’t help but smile. “I suppose all those jokes were right…Ghost has been with a lady all this time.”

Jon steps forward. She doesn’t understand why he’s not smiling. He looks more worried than he was before. He holds Lyaella safely in his left arm and reaches towards the direwolf with his right. Daenerys can’t help but step closer to him, concerned, but she realizes quickly that Jon knows this wolf. And the wolf knows him.

“Not a mate. Not a lady,” he corrects Daenerys quietly. The wolf growls lowly, but Jon doesn’t seem to hear it. He sets his hand on the wolf’s head. “A sister.”

“Nymeria,” Daenerys realizes, and then she smiles. The wolf’s eyes travel to hers at the sound of her name. “Oh, Arya’s going to be so…” she stops at the look in Jon’s eyes. They’re dark and heavy. _Not stormy, though,_ Daenerys thinks, her throat narrowing. _Afraid._

_If they go, they return in times of trouble,_ she hears, and for a moment, she’s unsure whether that’s her own thought or Jon’s. Either way, she knows that to be true. Drogon returned to her in the fighting pits. Ghost returned to Jon in the midst of Bloodraven’s mental attacks. Drogon returned to Jon at his lowest point on Dragonstone. What struggle has brought Nymeria back now?

Nymeria leads the way towards the Garden, as familiar with the landscape as if she’s lived here all her life. They follow.


	4. The Boy on the Wall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a million years, I know......"I'm sorry for the wait" doesn't really cut it, but I AM sorry 😥 I've been struggling and very busy on top of it. Hope those still reading enjoy this chapter...I've already got some of the next chapter written so hopefully I can get that one out sooner 😬 
> 
> Here's a poorly-written recap since it's been so long: Last chapter ended with Arya 'missing' and Nymeria returning. King's Landing is still dealing with Spring Fever; Jon and Dany's decisions regarding it thus far have helped fetter it, but it continues to claim lives. Daenerys is pregnant again, but she's having a difficult time shaking her fear and uncertainty that something will go wrong (due to past baggage/issues). Jon worries, too, but mainly for Daenerys after the trauma of Lyaella's birth. Lyaella is all about this sibling thing and sees her brother often in her dreams/the fire, as well as visions of the Night King's spiral symbol, leading Jon and Dany to believe the Others will somehow return in the future. Arya is torn between King's Landing and Storm's End. Ser Davos IS a grandfather. Back in Essos, Daario is insistent upon coming to King's Landing to see Daenerys; she suspects his intentions are not strictly business related and forbids it. But it's Daario, so it stands to be seen whether he abides by that. And that's what you missed on Glee.

I.

Nymeria takes them back to Rhaella’s Fortress, each step purposeful and intense, and Daenerys thinks she and Jon must appear similarly focused: no one stops them or says a word the entire walk. No guards question the sudden appearance of Nymeria, not one King’s Landing citizen greets them, and no soldiers attempt to stop them with conversation. Daenerys and Jon don’t say a word as they walk. Not to each other and not to Nymeria. There is nothing to say. They share the same knotted stomach, the same tight, pounding heart. The same fear and pain. The same love.

Grey Worm is in the Chamber of Three Lights when Nymeria leads them through it. He is not deterred by their somber expressions. He matches their pace easily and joins them as Nymeria leads them down Arya’s corridor.

“She’s not in her bedchambers,” he reminds Daenerys.

“She _wasn’t_ in her bedchambers,” Jon corrects. His voice is a deep pit.

Daenerys nods at Nymeria, her lips pressed into a tight line. “Nymeria thinks she’s here. She must be now.”

Grey Worm looks again at Nymeria, this time with his brows high in surprise.

“Nymeria? _Arya’s_ Nymeria?”

Daenerys nods again. She can tell Grey Worm has plenty of questions surrounding Nymeria’s reappearance, but he must sense that now is not the time. Instead, when Nymeria stops and sits outside the closed bathing chamber door, he looks at sleeping Lyaella. She’s still cuddled safely in her father’s embrace, her face tucked against his neck and her tiny arms looped around his neck.

“Do you want me to take Princess Lyaella to her chambers?”

It’s what makes the most sense. They don’t know what they’re going to find when they finally do find Arya, after all. But Dany doubts Jon is going to let go of their daughter. His hold on Lyaella is deeply protective— so protective that she feels he might fall apart if he’s forced to part from her. Daenerys knows her husband well; she knows that, right now, his mind is certainly a tangle of anxiety and terror, replayed traumas and repressed memories. He doesn’t do well with his family being in danger or hurt. Knowing that Arya might be is certainly making him more insistent upon keeping an eye on the rest.

As she suspected, Jon shakes his head at once, his jaw clenching.

“No,” he tells Grey Worm. “I need her here.”

Grey Worm is one of the few people brave enough to counter the king on such an emotional matter.

“But does _the princess_ need to be here?” Grey Worm asks, this time in Valyrian. “I think Arya might be ill. I saw her after breakfast, and she didn’t look well.”

“If she’s sick, Lyaella’s already been exposed. Arya was with us last night. Seven hells— she laid in the bed with us and read Lyaella a book; we can’t undo that.”

“That isn’t my concern. If Arya’s truly sick, it’s too late for any of us to protect ourselves from illness. But you can protect Lyaella from seeing Arya so unwell. From frightening her.”

No one likes to see Lyaella frightened or upset. But it isn’t only Lyaella who’s at risk of being devastated. Daenerys realizes she’s already growing upset, and she hasn’t even seen proof that anything is truly wrong yet. She’d like to say it’s the pregnancy making her emotions particularly volatile, but it’s not. Just the thought of Arya being near death on the other side of the door makes her stomach flip inside out (just the thought of potentially losing her like she’s lost so many others— Irri, Missandei— makes her eyes sear). Her anxiety hooks into her persistent nausea, yanking it up her throat, intensifying it. She folds forward, her arms going around her waist, her throat clenching as she represses the urge to gag. She feels her pulse begin pounding in her head, and for a time, all she can do is focus on not getting sick. She doesn’t even process the conversation Jon and Grey Worm are having, but when it ends, it seems they’ve decided to have Grey Worm wait just outside the bathing chambers with Lyaella while Jon and Dany check inside the room to see what is happening. As Dany straightens and watches Jon reluctantly pass Lyaella to Grey Worm, she thinks achieving even that slight distance between father and daughter is a feat. Jon’s distress is obvious. His jaw flexes as he grinds his teeth, and when Dany reaches for his hand, she has to pry his fingernails from his palms.

“Don’t go far,” Jon orders, but his anxiety makes it sound more like a plea than a command. 

“We won’t take a step,” Grey Worm promises. He shifts Lyaella’s sleeping weight and nods reassuringly at them. Daenerys tugs gently on Jon’s hand, urging him to walk towards the bathing chamber alongside her. He has trouble unsticking his feet— trouble moving even a few centimeters away from their little girl. But Daenerys can’t bear to leave Arya alone a moment longer, and if she must go into those chambers alone, she will. Jon senses that, and it seems his reluctance to step away from Lyaella is beat out only by his reluctance to be parted from Dany. He stands at her side as she opens the door.

Nymeria is first to enter; she brushes into the chamber, her posture tense. She walks towards the divider, no doubt headed towards the bathtub sitting just behind it. The air is thick and humid. Jon walks at Dany’s side up until they reach the divider, and then he comes to a stop and releases Dany’s hand. She steps behind it, and she knows that Arya is unwell from the moment she sees her. She’s sitting in her dressing gown in the bath, huddled over in the steaming water with her legs pulled to her chest and her face buried into her knees, and despite the heat emitting from the water, she’s shivering. Daenerys’s heart plummets once more, this time hard enough to wring the air from her lungs.

“Arya,” she calls faintly. She doesn’t keep her distance: there is no point. Dany was with Arya nearly all day yesterday. There’s no undoing that. She remembers the bloody flux in Astapor; she’d ordered the sick separated from the healthy in hopes of stifling the spread, but all that did was cause mothers to shriek for their sick babies, husbands to sob for their sick wives, sisters to run after sick brothers. It saved no one. In the end, the healthy family members got sick and died all the same. Their suffering was for nothing. Their lonely deaths were for nothing.

She lowers to her knees beside the tub. She hardly registers the pain that echoes through her bones as her kneecaps slam into the hard tile, nor the rapid dampening of her silks as they drink the water puddled around the base of the tub. She touches Arya’s shoulder; her skin could be fire for how it burns. And Dany feels that same fire rush through her own frame. It floods her with an urgency born from love and little else. She doesn’t think of anything but Arya as she rises higher on her knees and grasps her sister’s shoulders tightly.

“Arya, you’re burning up. What are you doing in here? You need the maester.”

Her question goes unanswered. Arya’s face remains buried in her knees.

“You have to get out,” Dany orders. Arya still doesn’t respond. She simply turns her face slightly to the right and then slightly to the left— a wordless refusal. And Dany won’t stand for it. “Yes. You have to. You shouldn’t be in the bath. Your temperature is already high.”

Arya’s voice is faint and shaky. Dany doubts she’s even cognizant of what she’s saying. “I’m cold.”

“I know you are. But it’s a trick, it’s—” she stops abruptly, overcome for a quick moment with memories of a time she’d been tricked into sitting in a freezing bath, a time she’d been made to think she was burning up when she was really shivering. Her mind had been twisted by Bloodraven, and Arya’s now by fever-led delirium, but in many ways, it was still the same. How had Jon made her see reason? He’d drenched her mind in clarity, enough clarity to save herself. How?

She slides her palm from Arya’s shoulder to the side of her neck. She flattens her hand there. “My hand must feel cold to you. But I’m never cold. My skin is always hot. You know it is. If I feel cold to you, then you must be burning. And you _must_ get out. Either you let me help you out, or Jon and I are going to lift you out. You have to. That _is_ an order, okay? I’m ordering you.” _Begging you. Don’t make us pull you from this water. Please. A sibling shouldn’t force their sibling to do anything. But I won’t let you stay here…we have to get your fever down…please…_

Arya’s trembling intensifies. “I can’t get up.”

“We’ll help you. _I’ll_ help you. It’s going to be okay.” Dany rises to her feet. She doesn’t know how she’s able to departmentalize the dizziness and nausea that threaten to pull her under, but suddenly, her mind is much more gripping than her body. She reaches into the tub and closes her hands around Arya’s. She pulls with all her might. She’s able to pull Arya forward— Arya’s trying to rise, too— but then Arya suddenly goes rigid and pulls backwards, forcing herself back into the water. Her dark eyes flutter open, and in them, Dany sees horror.

“No,” Arya says, shaking her head. She slides away from Dany until her back hits the back of the bathtub— until she can’t go any farther. “No! Go away! You can’t be in here— you can’t— you have to go— go away! Go away!”

Daenerys is taken aback and wounded at first. But the fevered flush of Arya’s skin keeps her from giving in to that pain.

“I can’t go away. I can’t leave you—” _not like I left Irri to die alone. Not like Missandei._

_“You can’t be here!”_ Arya’s growing hysterical. Dany’s certain her high temperature is the main catalyst to her hysteria. “Go! You can’t! You’ll get sick! You can’t! Lyaella— the baby— Jon— _don’t touch me!_ ”

Dany freezes, her hand only centimeters from Arya’s knee.

“Arya, please—”

“GO!”

She appears wild and half-crazed. She twists in the tub so her back is to Dany. She huddles over, her arms closing over her head, and Dany hears her choke out a sob. The sound of it steels her resolve, even as she hates herself for it.

Her heart sinking, her eyes burning, Dany calls out: “Jon.”

She straightens and waits until he’s at her side. She looks up at him, and he looks down at her. Dany’s heart is writhing with conflict, with guilt, with concern, and she knows Jon wants nothing less than he wants to yank his sister from the tub, but her temperature must be so high by now that she’s at risk of seizing. Dany heard that was happening to most of the people who died from Spring Fever; they grew delusional, convulsed, and then died. And if that could happen to them with cooling cloths covering every inch of their burning skin, it could certainly happen to Arya while she’s burning with a fever in a scalding bath.

“Arya,” Jon says, his voice firm. His voice is so tense his words remind Dany of a trap clamping shut, a door slamming closed. “You must get out.”

The sound of Jon’s voice only makes her cringe away further.

“Go away! Go! GO!”

Dany feels another wave of pain. For a moment, she thinks her mind has sunk into Jon’s and she’s feeling his own pain, but maybe his pain and hers are just one and the same. When she looks back at him, she sees the pain in his eyes. But he is not backing down. His jaw is clenched, and even though Dany can read his reluctance easily, he realizes how dangerous this is, too.

“No. We won’t. I know you want to protect us— I know you know you’re ill— but we’re already exposed. There’s nothing you can do to protect us now, but we have to protect you. You are going to get out of that bathtub, or I’m going to pick you up and carry you out of it.”

“You won’t!”

“I will,” Jon counters firmly. “I don’t want to, but I will. Because we’re not going to sit here and let you die. And you can scream at me, you can hit me and you can kick and bite or whatever you want to do, but I’m not leaving your side. Did you ever think we would? Did you think you could lock yourself away here without anyone noticing? Without Dany and I noticing?”

Maybe she hoped that. It’s probably why she’s hidden herself away instead of seeking help; she’d certainly known that the second they got wind of her presence in the sickhouse, they’d be at her side. And that’s the way it _should_ be. She’s not alone anymore; she’s got family, she’s Daenerys’s family. And Daenerys would die before she let her family suffer. She had once already.

Arya’s crying now. Dany has no idea whether it’s from the pain of being so sick or from fear, but the sound of it cuts her deeply either way. She edges closer, so close that the hot metal of the tub sears against the front of her thighs. Arya presses her face further into her knees, unable to look at them. Even in her delirium, her fears are not altogether irrational.

“The baby, Jon. Lyaella…”

“I know,” Jon says. His voice wavers. He’s blinking hard against tears when Dany looks up at him, his jaw clenched and his lips quivering down into a deep frown. “I know, Arya. But it’s too late. You’ve always known that if one of us got sick, the rest of us likely would, too. All we can do now is take care of each other. So are you going to let us help you up and back to bed, or am I going to have to lift you out of the water? If you’d rather me send for guards and handmaidens to get you out, I can. But you’ve got to get out.”

Perhaps Arya thought she could get Jon on her side by appealing to his children’s safety. But Jon knows what Dany knows: that time has already passed. If they’re going to fall ill now, it’s going to happen, even if they run from this room and keep away from Arya entirely. And even if that _could_ keep them perfectly safe, Dany’s still certain she couldn’t do it. She can’t leave Arya here to possibly die alone. She could never do that, and neither could Jon. Arya must know that. She must.

She does. Daenerys sees that as she lifts her head and extends her trembling hands. Dany turns to find a towel as Jon grasps Arya’s hands and helps to pull her up. As soon as she’s standing shivering in the tub, Dany lifts onto her tiptoes and leans forward, draping the towel around her sopping wet dressing gown. Arya clutches it weakly. Jon and Dany help steady her as she struggles to step out of the bathtub, and once she’s standing dripping onto the tile, she staggers against Dany. Daenerys wraps her into her arms at once, her eyes burning as fiercely as Arya’s skin. Arya sinks into her embrace. She doesn’t seem to notice at first as Nymeria brushes against her damp legs. Perhaps she thinks it’s Ghost.

“It’s Nymeria, Arya,” Jon murmurs, clearly thinking the same as Dany. “She’s here. Look.”

Arya looks, but she doesn’t seem to understand. She staggers further into Dany and stares unseeingly at the direwolf. She reaches down and touches Nymeria’s fur, her hand quivering, but she doesn’t say anything.

“I feel bad,” she finally whispers to Dany, her words shivering.

“I know,” Dany soothes. She kisses her hair and rubs her back. Her heart is trembling in her chest as she meets Jon’s concerned eyes. “Let’s go lie down, all right? And we’re going to get Aethel here at once, and she’ll make you better. It’s going to be fine. It’s going to be great, okay? Just walk with me…yes, good…slow and careful. It’s okay. You’re home and you’re safe. It’s going to be okay.”

Arya’s hardly able to stay upright. Jon helps Dany support her, and the three of them walk together, Arya’s steps dragging between them. Lyaella is still asleep in Grey Worm’s arms when they step out into the corridor, which is good, because Daenerys is certain the sight of her _Awa_ so unwell would traumatize her.

“Get Aethel,” Jon urges.

Grey Worm hesitates. “What about Lyaella?” 

“Take Lyaella to Davos,” Jon decides, though Dany is certain it kills him to do so. “Do that first. Have him stay in our chambers with her. We’ll send for her soon. If you can’t find him for some reason, bring Lyaella back to us. We’ll figure something out.”

If they could just get Arya in bed to rest, Dany thinks she’d look less like she’s gracing death’s door. Then the sight of her wouldn’t upset Lyaella too much. But Arya grows irritable and panicked soon after Jon’s words. She tugs away from their hands and shakes her head.

“No, keep Lyaella away,” Arya insists. “Don’t let her see me. Please. Please! It can’t be my fault— it can’t— it can’t— it can’t be mine— I don’t—want—”

Daenerys’s heart falls as Arya does. She reaches out as Arya’s knees give in. Jon lunges forward and catches his sister just in time, barely managing to grasp her arms before she crashes to the floor. For a moment, Dany’s certain she’s passed out, but it appears she’s simply too weak and dizzy to keep on walking. Dany knows that feeling well. For a sickening moment in time, her memory lurks on the corridors of that boat. But she comes back to reality quickly enough at the sound of Jon’s panicked voice.

“Arya? Are you okay?”

“Go,” Dany tells Grey Worm urgently. “Send the first guard you see to get Aethel at once.”

She and Jon help Arya back to her room. Dany feels enough fear and pain at Arya’s suffering to fall to pieces herself, and she knows that Jon does, too. But they don’t fall apart. Instead, they work together, as cohesive as if they’re of one mind. Daenerys finds a lightweight sleep shift while Jon pulls the covers back. Dany pulls Arya’s wet dressing gown from her shivering frame and helps dry her as Jon drapes a towel over Arya’s pillows to keep her wet hair from soaking the bed linens. Dany helps Arya pull her dry sleep shift on, and then she eases her onto her bed. While Dany holds her, Jon moves to the wash basin near the window and wets every cloth he finds folded beside it. Dany strokes Arya’s hair and murmurs reassurances to her as Jon drapes a cloth over her forehead. She shivers harder and angrily pushes the cloth away, but Jon moves it back.

“It’s awful. I know. I’m sorry. But you’re burning up.”

She shoves the cloth off her again, her irritability spiking. Dany expects her to push her away, too, but she doesn’t. She stays in Dany’s embrace, her cheek pressed against Dany’s chest. The heat radiating off her skin is unsettling: Dany can feel the sting of it against her breast, even through her dress. She looks to the door helplessly; Arya needs the maester _now_ — she needs help. Help that Dany can’t give. This is all she and Jon can do. And it’s not enough.

“You need—”

Arya interrupts Jon, squirming away from him as he tries yet again to cool her skin with the wet cloths. “I don’t! I don’t! I don’t want that! I want— I want—” she breaks off roughly, her voice shaking.

“What?” Jon asks, his voice softening. He scoots across the mattress, moving closer to Arya and Dany. He holds her hand. “What, Arya? What?”

“I want Mother,” she says hoarsely, stripped of all pride and strength, and then she begins to cry.

And Dany never had a mother. She shouldn’t be able to understand. She never had someone who loved her more than life itself wrap her up in their arms when she was ill— _No,_ she corrects herself suddenly, her eyes dancing over to Jon. Her heart swells so rapidly that it crowds her lungs. _That is not true. I have had someone who loves me more than life itself wrap me up in their arms when I’m ill. I have. So many times. Every day, lately. I have. Not a mother— no. But I have._

_As a girl, then, I never did,_ she amends. She tries to remember the loneliness, but it’s too far away to grasp thanks to the warmth she feels flooding her at the thought of her husband. She knows she had been lonely— she knows she never had a mother, never had an experience of maternal affection of the type Arya is currently craving— but she understands, anyway. Because even if she never had a mother, she’s _been_ a mother. She is a mother. She’s been one for a long while, and it’s what she takes the most pride in above all else. Because a queen is a mother (the strongest mother of all.) And she knows the type of comfort and love she gives her people. She knows the type of comfort and love she gives her daughter. She knows the comfort and love she gives her dragons. And she can give that to Arya, too.

“I’m here, Arya,” Dany whispers. Her voice cracks. “I’m not Catelyn Stark, but I love you. I’ll protect you. Shhh…it’s okay…I’m going to take care of you. I love you, and I’ll never leave. I’m always going to be here. It’s okay…”

Arya’s sobs are vehement. It’s clear she’s reached some point of delirium that’s not only impossible to soothe but indicative of some deeper threat. Dany cradles her head to her chest, the fevered heat of her skin searing her bosom, and rocks her as she weeps. She babbles things Dany can’t make out, and when Nymeria finally leaps onto the bed, she doesn’t even notice the weight of the direwolf as she drapes over her legs. Jon nudges Nymeria gently.

“Off,” he murmurs. “She’s hot enough without you on top of her. Go on.”

Nymeria cuts her eyes at him with such ferocity that Dany fears briefly that Jon will be mauled, but she relents and moves off Arya. She lays on the other side of the bed with a deep, worried huff.

“We need the maester,” Jon says suddenly, his anxiety bursting from him. He rises from the bed and paces at the bedside, his hands clenched at his sides. “She needs medicine. I’m going to go find Maester Aethelwyne— it’s taking far too long.”

Arya doesn’t say a word to protest him leaving, but she weeps harder in Dany’s arms as soon as he suggests he might. Dany knows she needs them now, even if she can’t (or won’t) admit to it. Even if she’s afraid to admit it. Arya— like Dany— went so many years without family at her side, without anyone to rock her when she felt ill, without anyone to soothe the sting of fear or pain. Dany wonders if she (like Dany) still doubts that she deserves comfort.

“Stay,” Dany asks on Arya’s behalf. “Stay here. Give Aethel just a bit longer, and then, if she still hasn’t come, one of us can go check. Come sit with us.”

Jon must be the one Arya really needs. He’s her brother. He’s the one who was there when she was only an infant, who was there for every part of her early childhood. The one who represents home. And when Jon joins them, Arya’s cries do soften, but she doesn’t leave Dany’s embrace. _Maybe I’m home, too,_ Dany realizes, and that thought fills her with warmth. She wants it to be true. She wants to bring Arya comfort. She wants her to feel safe and cared for in her arms. She wants to take care of Arya as Arya had once taken care of her.

She reclines against the pillows and strokes Arya’s hair as she cries. She and Jon exchange a heavy look, their worry oppressive and grinding. Daenerys is normally the one seized with the impatient need to _do something_ , to fix what is wrong, to use action to mend and heal, but this time, it’s Jon bursting with restless energy. It’s _Jon_ who has anxiety rolling off him in waves. Dany can’t imagine leaving Arya’s side. Not now. Not with her feeling so unwell that she’s in tears. Not with her fever so high she’s mumbling things that Dany can hardly make sense of. She’s able to determine one particular statement, though, that weaves between other mumbled statements: _I’m going to get you sick. Leave me here. I’m going to get you sick…_

Dany shushes her again. She leans forward and kisses her hair. Her scalp burns Dany’s lips.

“If I get sick, I get sick. You and Jon will take care of me. And if Jon gets sick, you and I will take care of him. And if Lyaella gets sick, all three of us will care for her. We can’t control who gets sick, but we can take care of the ones who do. That’s _all_ we can do. So stop worrying about me, stop worrying about Jon, stop worrying about Lyaella. Right now, it’s our time to worry about _you_.”

“No,” Arya protests at once. That idea seems absurd to her. She shakes her head and squirms in discomfort. “No. Lyaella…your baby…the baby…”

Daenerys feels a brief sting of guilt and pain at that, but she pushes it away. _I’m already exposed,_ she reminds herself. _I can’t leave Arya alone. That wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t._

“I need to go,” Arya says. Her panic seems to be blooming. She struggles to sit up, but she’s too weak to do more than rise a few inches and then fall back against Dany’s chest. “I need to— I have to— I can’t be here— I can’t make you sick— I have to go—”

“Targaryens don’t get sick easily,” Daenerys lies firmly. She tries to infuse her voice with as much confidence as Viserys had when he told her the same thing as a child. “We’ve got strong immunities. It’s our Valyrian blood. I’ve never been sick before. Injured, yes, but never ill. And Jon is a Targaryen, and Lyaella, and my baby, too. So we’re going to be fine.”

“No,” Arya refutes, “Jon was before…he was— he had— he had the pox once. When he was little.”

Daenerys didn’t know that. It throws her for a moment to be faced with some unknown fact about the man so close to her he might as well be part of her. She looks over at him, but going by his neutral expression, it must not have been too traumatic of an experience.

“Well…” she’s not sure what to say back to that. “Luckily for Jon, this isn’t the pox. Now shush.You need rest.”

For a moment, Arya listens. She sinks further into Daenerys’s embrace, her breath leaving her in a deep sigh as she settles down. Something about her current vulnerability reminds Daenerys of Lyaella, and that thought fills her with a fresh wave of affection. _She’s young,_ Daenerys thinks, the thought never as piercing as it is right then. _She never seems it. But she is. Half a decade younger. So much happens in that span of time. Who was I half a decade ago? Different— alone. Lost._

Arya doesn’t stay settled for long. Dany can tell she’s so uncomfortable that sleep won’t come. She shivers so hard her teeth knock together, and no matter how many blankets Jon tucks around her, she doesn’t stop. Dany, on the other hand, grows sick from the heat of her and the blankets rather quickly. But her feeling nauseated is nothing new; she battles it stoically, refusing to so much as shift beneath her sister out of fear of disturbing her. But when Aethel finally arrives and nudges Arya over for the sake of examining her, Daenerys is relieved to be able to slide off the mattress. The bed is radiating heat like a furnace, and as she stands, she sucks in the cool air greedily, her eyes fluttering shut as she struggles to overcome her nausea.

“Is it Spring Fever?” Dany asks, her back still to Aethel, Jon, and Arya, and her eyes still squeezed shut. She sets her palm over her stomach and bows forward slightly. Her breaths are shallow and pinched. “Aethel?”

It takes the maester longer to answer than Dany can stand. She thinks the long silence might somehow be intensifying her nausea: the longer it drags on, the worse it gets, until Dany’s folded over at the waist, her eyes closed against the way her vision is rocking.

“It appears to be,” Maester Aethelwyne finally answers unhappily. “Drink this, Arya. It tastes horrible, but it’s the strongest thing we have thus far. You must drink every drop.”

Dany hears the sound of Arya gagging seconds later, and that sound crumbles Dany’s composure. She darts towards the table beside Arya’s bedchamber door, her hands floundering weakly for the water pitcher set upon it. She barely manages to snatch it up by the heavy handle; she vomits into the narrow opening, only managing to catch some of it, her hands shaking so hard the pitcher sways back and forth in her hands as she retches. She feels Jon’s hand settle on her back only a moment or so later. He tucks loose pieces of hair behind her ears and rubs her back. She’s lightheaded by the time she finishes vomiting, and for a minute or so, she doesn’t do anything but sway with her eyes shut as she struggles to regain her strength.

“I’m fine,” she finally tells Jon. She reaches back and pushes weakly at his stomach. “Go back to Arya.”

“But—”

“I’m fine,” she repeats, her voice sharper this time. “Go to her, Jon, please.”

It’s the _please_ that gets him— that and the cry of discomfort Arya gives from behind them. Dany turns around to make sure she’s okay before she begins cleaning herself up; Aethel’s draping cool cloths over her body again, this time over every bit of exposed skin, and going by Arya’s shivering and grimacing, it’s nearly torturous. Dany’s instinct is to order Aethel to remove the cloths— to save Arya from the discomfort— but she knows the only way to get her through the night will be by lowering her body temperature. No matter how uncomfortable that process may be.

Daenerys grabs a napkin from Arya’s untouched lunch tray stoops down to begin cleaning up the mess she’s made on the stone floor, certain the last thing Arya needs is her bedchambers smelling like bile, but another pair of hands beat her to it. She looks up and meets one of her handmaiden’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes. She feels embarrassed, perhaps because this is the second time today someone’s had to clean up her vomit. “I didn’t mean to get it…” she trails off, eying the floor and sick-splattered pitcher pointedly. “I can do it—”

“No, Your Grace, I don’t mind,” the handmaiden says firmly. “I’ve cleaned up much worse than vomit. Go to Lady Stark. She’s not well.”

Another handmaiden reaches a hand down for Dany to grasp. Daenerys takes it, allowing her to pull her back to her feet. She stands still as the handmaiden takes a dampened towel to her face and hair, wiping away the last traces of sick from her skin. Dany’s never felt less regal in her life.

“Here,” she says, passing Dany a glass of water. “We’ll send someone to bring you ginger tea. And Lady Stark iced milk. I hear iced milk cured Ria’s cousin. She had Spring Fever last week. Now she’s back working in the library.”

Dany sips at the water slowly. She wants to down it to help remove the lingering taste of vomit, but she knows she needs to take it slowly to prevent a resurgence of nausea. She listens to the handmaiden go on and on about the cousin and the magic of iced milk, too tired to even suggest that perhaps it was the Conclave’s medicines that saved her and not iced milk. She’d have gallons of the stuff brought up for Arya if she truly thought it would save her.

She thanks the handmaidens and returns to Arya’s side. She’s finally sleeping, but it’s fitful, and she trembles nonstop. Aethel has to remove the cloths from her skin every few minutes and re-douse them in cold water, as Arya’s temperature is so high it makes the water soaking the fabric warm in no time at all. Dany curls against Jon’s side and struggles to keep a grip on her emotions. But with every minute that passes, she grows more and more upset. And so does he.

“How could this happen?” he asks Aethel, his voice shaking. “She hasn’t been at the sickhouses. She hasn’t been out of the Garden much. Where did she get this?”

He’s searching for answers— answers Dany desperately needs, too, so that she knows whether this is somehow _her fault_ — but Aethel has none to give him.

“I don’t know. There is no way to know for certain. Arya tends to make friends with people from many different walks of life, so it’s possible she’s been around someone ill without even realizing it. Regardless, sickness strikes, and there is little we can do to prevent it entirely.” Aethel moves the tray holding her various medicines and elixirs so that she can sit down on the edge of the bed on Arya’s other side. She meets Dany’s eyes. “Your Grace, I am going to do everything I can for Arya. You don’t need to be here. You _shouldn’t_ be here.”

Her words are heavy, but they’re nothing compared to how heavy Dany’s heart feels. Her eyes burn hotter than Arya’s fevered skin.

“I can’t be anywhere else,” she admits. Her voice breaks and fades off. It’s little more than a whisper.

Aethel frowns. She looks at Jon then. Dany can tell it’s an attempt to appeal to him— an attempt to get him to make her leave. But when Jon looks back at Daenerys, she knows he can read the enormity of her pain.

He looks back at Aethel.

“We were with Arya last night. She was resting with us and the princess. It’s too late to quarantine ourselves from her.”

Aethel sucks in a short breath, almost like she’s steadying herself to do something particularly dangerous or painful. And she is. She’s readying herself to suggest something Dany and Jon just can’t bear.

“Yes, that’s true. But every second you sit holed up in this room as she burns with fever, the more opportunity you’re giving yourselves to become sick. It’s not safe. You both should go. I’ll take care of her. I have everything here— everything we’ve tried with the people who ended up living. That is all I can do. And you two can’t do anything more to help save her now.”

Dany cannot accept that: it’s _her_ job to save people. Isn’t it? If she doesn’t rescue Arya, who will? If Jon doesn’t, who can?

“She needs us,” Dany argues. “We can’t make her well, but we can be here at her side. We can make sure she’s not alone.”

_Like Irri. Dead on the floor. Her dark hair streaming across the tile. Alone. Like Missandei. Standing alone, embraced only by the cold metal of chains. Her dark hair tumbling down, down, down— No._

“We can’t just leave her here,” Jon whispers. “She’s family, Aethel. She’s my sister.”

“I know. And if I know Arya, I know that the last thing she would want is to cause one of you— or, Gods forbid, the princess— to fall ill.” 

Dany shakes her head. “She won’t. She isn’t. Even if we do, it isn’t her fault. She didn’t ask to get sick.”

“No, of course not,” Aethel agrees. “But that doesn’t change the fact that she is, and you’re pregnant.”

Dany goes up in arms at once. That reaction is a hard habit to break.

“We _think_ I am,” she says reflexively.

Aethel reaches over Arya and sets a hand on Dany’s arm. “You _are_ , Your Grace. And you shouldn’t be here. This illness is dangerous for everyone, but it’s especially dangerous for you.”

She feels helpless. “Where else would I go? Arya is here. My sister is here. She needs me.” _That’s what a sibling does: they take care of their sibling. They protect them,_ she thinks. _Or, at least, that’s what they_ should _do. Always. That is what_ I _will do._

_But she doesn’t need you, she needs her mother,_ a voice in Dany’s head says. _You’re not her mother. You’re Lyaella’s mother— Aemon’s mother. That’s who you should be protecting._ But if she left, who would be here? If she left, who would hold Arya and tell her that she’s going to be okay? Siblings are the protectors one has left when their parents have gone. They must be. They must. If she were gone, and Jon were gone, and Lyaella were sick, she would want Aemon to be with her. No matter what. She wouldn’t want Lyaella or Aemon alone. That was the point of family— so that you weren’t alone. So that you never had to shake and cry in a sickbed without someone’s chest beneath your head, without someone’s hand in yours. So that you never had to feel afraid or homeless— nationless— _pointless._ So you never had to live a frightening night without someone there to kiss you and tell you that it’s going to be fine. Even if it’s not.

Where else could she possibly go? She asks Aethel again, her words twisted and choked. Aethel’s frown deepens.

“You should go where the family of the sick always go,” she answers. “The sept— or, no, sorry: the Temple. You should go pray. That’s all we can do now.”

She’s sick again. But she doesn’t think it’s because of her baby.

“Dany…”

She doesn’t have to look at Jon to know he’s taken Aethel’s words of warning to heart. And she doesn’t have to turn towards him to know it’s not himself he’s worried about. She can hear it all in the heavy tenor of his voice.

“I can’t. And I won’t,” she murmurs. She preoccupies herself with straightening the bedsheet over Arya. She’s afraid of what she might see in the storm of Jon’s eyes. “She’s my family. I will wear neroli-oiled cloths over my mouth and nose like the maesters, and I’ll glove my hands, and I’ll cover my skin and even my hair— I’ll take any medicines or herbs that I can— but I won’t leave her.”

She knows what he’s going to say before he says it. Because of that, it doesn’t surprise or upset her much.

“It would be better for you to go to the temple and me to stay here,” Jon says carefully.

Dany shakes her head. “No. If anyone’s going to the temple, it should be you.”

That ruffles him. “Me? No. You’re the one he chose. You’re his favorite.”

Those words make Dany want to smile for an odd moment. It’s so ridiculous to hear him talk of R’hllor like a shared family member that dotes on Dany in particular. Especially since it’s clearly not true.

“His favorite what? Human? Targaryen?”

“I don’t know. Something. He chose you. He told me that himself,” Jon persists. “You should be the one to go.”

“I can’t hear him like you can. He always comes to _you_. He talks to _you_.”

“He talks to both of us.”

“He never talks to me if it’s only me looking into the flames,” Dany admits. “I only ever hear him when my mind is with _yours_ —”

She becomes aware of Aethel’s baffled stare. She’s hanging onto every word. Dany stops speaking abruptly and meets Jon’s eyes. They share a tense look: their strange relationship with R’hllor is secret and likely to stay that way. They know the High Septon will be an issue for them eventually, and neither Jon nor Dany are in any hurry to rush the problem on. The more casual they can seem about “the Red God”, the better relations with the Faith of the Seven will be. And admitting that the Red God talks to them and even favors one of them is certainly not _casual_.

Still— Daenerys knows she’s right. Jon has a different sort of openness with their god than she does. But it’s also true that he chose them _together_ — he prefers them _together_. But they both can’t leave Arya. Dany’s not even certain she could leave even if Jon were here.

“We don’t need the temple,” Dany says then, her eyes resting once more on Arya’s flushed face. Her expression is twisted in discomfort. “We just need the fire.” That’s one of the many good things about their god. He lives, breathes, and speaks through fire, and that’s what they’re made of. They’re never short on that.

Jon’s eyes are heavy, the storm clouds soaked through with an impending downpour. But Dany knows he can feel her own pain. She knows he understands that she can’t walk away from Arya now. Not when she knows, logically, that the damage has already been done: she’s been exposed, and now only time will tell what happens to her.

Jon touches her hip. His eyes pour into hers.

“I want you to wear what the maesters wear.”

It’s an easy thing to acquiesce to. If it’d make him feel better, she’d drown herself in ten pounds of oiled cloths. But she’s not the only one who is cherished.

“I want you to, too,” she tells him.

Like her, he nods. When Dany looks back at Aethel, she can see that this hasn’t wholly appeased the Grand Maester, but she’s not likely to argue with them anymore.

“I’ll fetch our protective wear for you two at once,” Aethel says, her lips pressed into a tight line. “I’ll also bring some preventative herbs for you, like what Lyaella was taking. How _is_ the princess?”

That question twists Dany’s stomach violently. She thinks she might be sick again for a moment, but it passes, the clenching pain traveling up to her heart instead. _I miss her,_ she thinks, and the truth of that is brutal and helpless. She misses her daughter, but when will she be able to see her again? Lyaella can’t be in this room. But Dany has no idea how long it’ll take to get Arya better. How can she be away from her daughter for even a night? She’d told herself she never would again. Not after those first three nights she was ripped away from her.

“She seemed okay, but don’t they always seem okay at first?”

Aethel nods.

“Can you send someone to check on her? A maester that hasn’t had any contact with the sick. She’s with Ser Davos,” Dany says. Something occurs to her. “And someone needs to tell Sansa about Arya. She must not know yet, unless Grey Worm has told her, but I doubt it.”

“I’ll do both at once, Your Grace,” Aethel promises. She must read the panic that’s flowing through Dany, the sickening fear and uneasiness. “We’ll do everything we can.”

Dany knows they will. That’s not what she’s worried about.

She’s worried that it won’t be enough.

She’s worried about what will happen to her family now that she no longer has control. Now that she can no longer protect them. She’s never had to give up control like that with her family; even in her lowest moments, even while hemorrhaging and toeing the doorway of death, she was in control. She was able to protect them. She’s not sure how to cope with the terror of knowing that currently, she can’t.

II.

The first chill tiptoes down his spine as he and Dany sit in front of the fire.

With his mind entangled with hers, he wonders how he can feel shivery as the heat of the flames encases his skin. He feels a tremor of terror flow to his mind from Dany’s, and he lies. _No,_ he thinks. _I feel fine. I feel fine._

But he doesn’t. And that lie is evident only a half-hour later. His persistent chill and exhaustion turn malignant; he feels a strange feeling of malaise wash over him, one that entangles physical discomfort with mental, and his bones ache as if he’s fallen from some great height. His skin is damp with sweat even as he shivers, miserably chilled and unable to warm himself. And when his wife sets a trembling hand on his flushed cheek, he sees the way her face falls.

“I’m fine,” Jon says again. But it sounds weak, and he’s growing so miserable so quickly that he feels panicky and desperate. He feels his eyes burn, too. Suddenly, Arya’s sobs make perfect sense to him. If she felt even half as terrible as he does now, she had every right to weep. And entwined with his pain is his fear. He tries to sit up and mask how cold he is, how poorly he feels, but he’s not sure he’s doing a good job. His wife’s eyes only grow darker with fear.

“I’m fine,” Jon repeats. He inhales deeply and pretends his face isn’t burning with heat. “Go check on our daughter. Go on.”

He reaches over and gives Dany’s hip a gentle push, trying to ease her towards the edge of the bed— and away from him. _If I can just convince her that I’m okay, then maybe I can convince her to go check on Ly, and then she won’t get it, too…she can’t get it, too. She can’t._

But she makes no move to leave the bed. She doesn’t budge. He knows there’s little possibility he’ll ever talk her into leaving. But he’s afraid.

“No,” she tells him, wounded. “I’m not leaving you.” She reaches out and touches his forehead gently. Her fingertips quake. “You’re burning up. How do you feel?”

“ _Fine_ ,” he repeats. His tone is testy; he can’t help it. He gives another push at her hip. “You need to go to Ly—”

“ _No._ Stop it,” Dany snaps, shoving his hand from her hipbone. “I’m _not_ leaving. We need to get the Maester back here right now— you’re ill, Jon.”

He parts his lips to argue and insist that he’s not, but he stops. He doesn’t have the energy to continue arguing, and he knows she won’t believe him even if he found it and tried. He can’t stop trembling; he collapses back onto the pillows and drags the covers up to his chin, but it does little to help. For a moment, all he can think about is getting warm again. He feels as if he’s lying naked in the snow, as if he might freeze. He wants to get up and go back to the fireplace and relight it, but he’s suddenly certain he won’t be able to walk even if he can get himself to sit up again. And he doubts even the flames would help.

He hears Dany send for the Maester, and then the bed shifts as she rejoins him and Arya. Dany presses a cool cloth to his face, and he flinches. The coldness of it shoots through him, sharp and piercing. He trembles harder. He has to clench his teeth to keep from snapping at her. _She’s trying to help. She’s trying to help. She wants to make me better…_

But it doesn’t feel like it’s helping. His shaking increases until his teeth are chattering. His heart is low and heavy in his chest, too, sunk down by a sense of doom he can’t make sense of. He knows it can’t be true, but he feels as if he’s dying. It frightens him.

“Stop,” he begs his wife, turning his face away from the cloth. “It’s too cold. It’s too cold.”

He can’t see her— his eyelids are too heavy to force up, and the light makes his head throb with pain— but he can feel her conflict.

“Please,” he begs, and his voice breaks. The thought of that cold cloth pressing his skin again makes his eyes burn. “I don’t want it.”

He regrets allowing Aethel to cover Arya’s body with cold cloths. He can’t imagine how horrible that must have felt, how torturous. _If she dies, the last thing she experienced was pain,_ he thinks, and that thought intensifies his impulse to cry. But he can’t. He can’t cry. He can’t let Dany see that…he can’t frighten her…he can’t be broken like that. He _has_ to be okay. He has to. Because he has to be here to take care of Lyaella and Aemon. And Daenerys. If he’s gone, who will protect them? Who will watch over them? He has a family now. He can’t die. He can’t leave them alone. They’re his duty.

But his heart is pounding so hard in his chest it’s making him feel dizzy, and the pain in his head mounts by the minute. Soon, he can’t remember that he’s supposed to be brave and strong and stoic— all he can think about is how cold he is, how much his body aches, how frightened he is that he’ll never feel better. That the discomfort will get worse, and worse, and then he’ll die, and then what? Then what? Who holds Dany as she has Aemon? Who sings Lyaella to sleep? Not even Arya— not if this sickness takes her, too. If both he and Arya die now…

_Who will protect my family? Who will protect them? Who? Who? Who? Who will love them? Who?_

The thought loops through his mind. Somewhere, lurking at the back of it, he recognizes that his thoughts aren’t rational, that he’s nearing that same frantic hysteria that had taken Arya before she slipped to sleep. But he can’t do anything for it. The higher his fever gets, the more upset he becomes and the worse he feels.

He instinctively cringes away when he feels his wife draw nearer to him, fearing that cold cloth, but the icy pierce of it never pricks his skin. Instead, he feels a brief gust of cool air, and then his wife’s body presses against his. She’s joined him underneath the covers, and he realizes he’s never fully appreciated the heat of her before now. She pushes her leg between his and wraps her arms around him, pressing every bit of her to every bit of him, and he uses what little strength he has left to tug her even closer. He shudders at the warmth of her skin, but it’s a shudder of relief. He bows his head and buries it into the crook of her neck. The sweetness of her skin is nearly as comforting as her body heat.

It’s as if her warmth thaws the rational parts of his mind, but his sickness still has a greater grasp on his thoughts than anything else. So he’s able to realize she’s removed the Maester’s protective cloths from her face and her body, and he’s able to murmur: “You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be so close. Where are your cloths?”

But he’s not able to move away from her. He can’t get himself to unlatch his arms from around her, and she doesn’t so much as loosen her hold on him, either.

“There’s no point in the cloths and there’s no point in me leaving now,” she tells him. “Just let me take care of you.”

“But—”

“No. Shush.” She slips her hands up the back of his jerkin, her palms rubbing warmth up and down the sore muscles of his back. He inches further into her, his body relaxing entirely. “Rest. It’s okay.”

It’s not okay. He doesn’t know how to do this— how to be taken care of like this. He never has. He feels guilty, like he doesn’t deserve his wife’s attention or her comforting, and it has nothing to do with her love for him (which he knows is deep and true); it has everything to do with the scars from his childhood. He doesn’t know how to let someone hold him and stroke his fevered skin beneath soft blankets. He only knows how to shake and shiver on his own, how to drag himself out of bed for the things he needs. The few times he’d fallen ill as a child, the Septa had been there, but not to cradle him or rock him to sleep. To administer medications, check his temperature, force-feed him soup. Never this. He has _never_ been held like this— not when he’s this unwell, this vulnerable.

_I should be the one holding her…I should be strong…she must be so worried and afraid_ , he thinks, but he doesn’t have the strength to lift his face from the heat of her neck. She is the most blissful thing in the world to him, and he’s certain, if someone were to pull him from the blaze of her embrace, that he would fall apart. _I need her_ , he thinks, and though he’s always known it, he means it in a more vulnerable way than he ever has before. _I need her._

He grips her tighter, his fingers weaving through her hair and his heart thudding against hers. He wants to tell her…tell her…

He can’t remember. It was important. It was about her. About Aemon. What did he want to tell her? He feels confused, and his neck aches. He tries to lift his face from Dany, thinking straightening his neck will help, but that only makes pain build behind his eyes and pressure swell in his skull, so he quickly lowers his face back down against her soft skin. He hasn’t felt this bad since that evening in Winterfell. Since he was knee-deep in the snow, vomit spewing from his lips, the hemispheres of his brain being wrenched apart—

_No. That’s not true. I felt worse the evening Dany died, when Bloodraven was ripping through my brain, when Dany was bleeding out and dying on the bed behind me and I couldn’t even stand up— I couldn’t even walk over to her— I couldn’t protect her or Lyaella— I couldn’t help—_

And then there was the agony and suffering that came after that.

But that suffering was a different sort. It lives in a separate place in his mind, a place so dark he doesn’t have light enough to examine it properly. But it is different than this pain. It can’t even be compared.

He drifts in and out, too miserable to sleep deeply but too confused and disorientated to stay conscious. The maester comes in and out— he’s forced to swallow a pressed bundle of herbs three separate times, and various cups of thick, pungent concoctions are brought to his lips more times than he can recall— but Dany doesn’t let anyone strip him down and douse him in cool water.

“He’s the blood of the dragon— like me,” she keeps insisting. “The heat can’t kill him. It can’t. He knows what he needs. He needs to be warm.”

But Jon’s not sure of any of that, and he can tell from the bits of conversation that he hears that Aethel isn’t, either.

“A fever can cook his brain, Your Grace,” he hears Aethel say. “I know it feels awful for him, but if his temperature keeps climbing, he’ll need to be cooled. In fact, you shouldn’t be underneath all those blankets with him. He needs to cool down…”

“He’s already cooled some. I can feel it. I can,” Dany insists, but her voice tears at the end of each word, and Jon wonders if she’s only telling herself that. He certainly doesn’t feel any better. If anything, he feels worse.

“I don’t think he has, Your Grace,” Aethel says gently.

“The cool cloths didn’t help Arya. All that discomfort was for nothing,” Dany murmurs.

Those words are a twist to Jon’s heart. He struggles to lift his face from Dany’s shoulder enough to speak. He only makes it a few inches before his neck sears and his head throbs, but he’s able to push a few words out.

“Arya? She’s…” he stops. There’s one word he can’t say.

“She’s fighting,” Aethel answers firmly. “If she makes it through the night, she’ll be okay.”

_If I do, will I be?_ he wonders. But he doesn’t ask.

“We should at least take the blankets off him so he can cool that way,” Aethel persists gravely. “I know you don’t want him to suffer, but he’s already suffering. The sooner we can get him through this, the sooner he’ll feel better. Nothing in the world will make him feel better beyond that.”

Jon wants the blankets pulled from him even less than he wants cool cloths pressed to his skin. But maybe Aethel is right; he certainly feels unwell, and he doesn’t seem to be getting better. _I can’t leave them. I can’t leave them. I can’t leave them._ It circles his head in sets of three. _I can’t leave my family. I can’t. I can’t have been brought back only to die of a fever. The Lord of Light wouldn’t do that. But maybe the Great Other would. What if this is his doing somehow?_

He’s shivering so hard his teeth are clattering as he reluctantly moves back from Dany’s embrace. Once his arms are free, he pushes the blankets from his fevered form. The cool air is horrific, and it’s all he can do to keep from yanking the covers back up. He twists and turns over so he’s lying on his stomach, as much of him pressed into the heat of the bedsheets as possible. He can’t keep himself from pushing his arms beneath his pillow, and then his head, too: the light drills painfully into his skull even from behind his closed eyelids.

It’s muffled and dark beneath the pillow. And warm. He ignores the chill of the air against his back and his legs. And when he feels Aethel pull his jerkin up and rest a cool cloth over his spine, he flinches.

“Put that one on his neck,” Aethel requests, and seconds later, Dany’s brushes Jon’s curls off the back of his neck for the sake of gently pressing a cool compress there.

“I’m sorry,” he hears her murmur softly, so quietly that Jon’s certain only he’s heard. Her fingers tremble as they stroke his shoulder. “Only a few more. Tell me if you want me to take them off, and I will.”

He does want her to, but he doesn’t say it. He grits his teeth beneath the pillow as cool compresses are pressed underneath each of his arms, between his legs, and down the length of his spine. He’s certain he’s never been more uncomfortable in his life, but he doesn’t ask for them to be removed. Because he’s thinking of his daughter. Of her bright smile, her curious questions, her sweet laugh. She needs him. She needs him so much. He can’t leave her here in this world— and he can’t leave Dany, either. Or his son. A boy needs his father…Jon can’t imagine what he would’ve done without Ned Stark. How he would have survived. Aemon needs him. And he needs them, too.

Dany fits herself to his side as he struggles to endure the coldness seeping into his skin. Her body heat is a slight reprieve on one side, but it does little to lessen the overall weight of his misery. He tries to move his arm out from underneath the pillow to touch his wife’s forehead— to check and make sure _she’s_ still okay— but his temperature is so wrong he can’t figure out whether she feels warm or cool. She takes his hand in hers and brings it to her lips. Her kiss is gentle.

“Everything is fine,” she soothes. “I’m okay.”

“Ly…”

“She’s okay, too. Aethel said she’s perfectly fine as of right now. The moment she starts to look ill, Davos will bring her straight here. To us. Ghost is with her; he isn’t leaving her side even for a second. How are you feeling?”

He wants to say that he’s feeling better. But he can’t lie to her.

“My head feels like it’s going to explode.”

“You’re no stranger to that feeling,” she murmurs. He feels soft pressure against his scalp as she kisses his head. It makes his heart swell. “Can I get you anything?”

“No. Just stay.”

He doesn’t mean to ask it if of her. He doesn’t mean to be so honest, so selfish. _I should be begging her to leave, to protect herself, to protect our son,_ he thinks. _How can I say that? How can I?_

But she wouldn’t leave him even if he begged it of her. And he needs her. It’s a terrible truth. Protecting her and taking care of her comes naturally to him— thanks to the things they went through three years ago— but allowing himself to be protected and cared for does not. Yet that is what he needs.

And she doesn’t leave. She stays tucked to his side, the soft press of her warm body heavenly and right, and she strokes her fingers through his hair until his eyelids grow heavy again.

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” she admits softly. “To stay. With you. And that’s what I’m going to do.” 

_She means it,_ he thinks, each word woven between half-conscious dreams. He sees the roiling of the sea, a flash of lightning. Laughter twinkles in the night sky— he sees Lyaella’s face reflected in a glass as she laughs, and when she parts her lips, it’s the sound of two glass goblets clinking together.

“I love you. If you could feel how much, those words would never be necessary again. I love you…I love you. You can’t leave me. Okay? You can’t. You mustn’t. Don’t leave me here without you.”

Dany’s lifting a dark-haired baby into the air, and two red roses bloom against his cheeks. Tears splash against the petals as they plummet from a heavy dark cloud, and the cloud shifts and trembles, and then Storm extends his wings and takes off across the sky…

Each stroke of his wings shatters the black glass sky. Inky shards glitter and shimmer behind him as he trails through the night. Jon’s mind follows.

III.

She can’t breathe.

It’s not the weight of Arya’s face, nestled against her left shoulder.

It’s not the weight of Jon’s cheek, pressed heavily against her tender breast.

It’s not the weight of Nymeria, anchoring her and Arya’s legs to the bed.

It’s her fear, elephantine and vicious. Leaden and writhing. Pregnant and cruel.

It could be a physical thing squeezing her lungs and it would make little difference. She lay there between her sister and her husband, their skin blistering against hers, and she can hardly inhale. She certainly can’t speak: when Sansa and Tyrion enter to check in on them, Dany can’t find the strength to do more than ask them about Lyaella. And when Sansa asks her: _Are you okay?_ Dany feels her eyes catch flame. She’s certain she’s never been less okay in her life.

Arya and Jon shake with fever, twist in discomfort, and cry out from deep within their fevered dreams. And Dany can do nothing for them. Nothing. She kisses their foreheads and strokes their skin, but that doesn’t cool them. She scrounges for every bit of strength she has to murmur _it’s going to be all right,_ but that doesn’t make it so. She tells Jon: _you’re fire made flesh. Fire cannot kill you. Not a dragon._ But his temperature blazes so high Aethel has to wrap him in an icy towel, and then he cries in his sleep, and Dany cries, too. She blames herself. For all of it. _I’m sorry,_ she breathes into his curls. _I'm sorry._

“You shouldn’t be here,” Aethel repeats, over and over, her eyebrows drawn down so severely that her smooth forehead hosts a hundred lines. “You shouldn’t be.”

And maybe she’s right. Dany tries to tell herself that she’s not a curse on those she loves, but if that were true, how could she be here between two of the people she loves most as they teeter between life and death? If that were true, how could she have lost as many people as she has?

“The baby,” Aethel reminds her, over and over. Dany wonders if she’s beginning to get delirious from the heat searing into her or if she’s getting sick, too, because Aethel’s words loop around her mind. _The baby. The baby. The baby…_

_Only death pays for life._ She died, and Lyaella lived. Drogo lived, and Rhaego died. Viserion died, and Jon was pulled from that frozen river. _Who will die now? What is the cost? Arya? Jon? I won’t pay it. I won’t pay. I won’t. Take it back. I won’t be alone again. I won’t take my daughter’s father away from her. I won’t let Jon be taken from me._

She doesn’t realize how overheated she is until Aethel and Grey Worm talk her into sitting by the opened window. She gives in only because she’s too nauseated to fight them. She sits in the breeze and pants against her nausea, her arms wrapped tight around the subtle swell of her belly. _Please,_ she thinks, over and over. She doesn’t open her eyes for fear she’ll vomit as soon as she does. _Please don’t take them. Please. I’ll do anything._

And she means it. She sips cool mint tea at Grey Worm’s insistence, and then she asks him to light the fireplace again. He doesn’t argue or say the last thing the room needs is more heat. He just lights it and sits beside Dany on the carpet.

She doesn’t know how to find R’hllor without Jon, so she doesn’t look. She just stares at the flames until she feels calm and anchored. She lets her mind paint and stitch the picture of herplea (the most desperate one she’s ever made): she thinks of Jon’s full lips against her skin, the secure squeeze of his fingers around hers, the way his eyes light up as he smiles at Lyaella. She thinks of Arya’s laughter, the woodsy smell of her hair, the wild shine of her eyes. And then she thinks of herself, alone. _I won’t be like that again. I can’t be. I need them. I need them. Please. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll build a thousand temples. I’ll be good…I’ll be better. I’ll be less afraid. I’ll be less selfish. Please. Anything but this. Anything. I died rather than go through this. Don’t let that be for nothing. Don’t take them from me. Not now. I can’t be without them. Lyaella can’t be without her father— Aemon can’t be without his father—_

As soon as she thinks of Aemon, she feels warmth settle over her bones. It reminds her so vividly of Jon’s heavy fur cloak that she catches herself reaching back. She almost expects to find him just behind her, his hands extended as he wraps her in his furs. When she touches nothing but empty air, the hollow ache in her chest swells.

_Aemon,_ she thinks again, chasing that brief sense of warmth she’d felt moments before. She realizes, light flaring behind her eyes, that she’s found the being she was seeking. Somehow, she knows that this is what he wants: her acceptance of her son’s existence. Her bravery. Since the first moment she thought it might be possible that she was with child, she’d been terrified of it. Terrified to admit she’s pregnant aloud, terrified to give name or attention to the potential budding within her. She’s kept Jon’s excitement pressed down and contained simply because she can’t bear to speak of it with him, not in the way he wants to. Not like he needs to. Here, though— now, though…the future isn’t frightening. Because the future is what she so desperately needs. She needs the truth, she needs reassurance, she needs everything she’s run from before, she needs—

_This_.

Her heart expands and unfurls so wide it could be pressed flat. Inside the flames, she sees beauty. Jon’s curls, loose and free from his bun, shining in the light. Her son’s equally dark hair, curling just at the ends, his chubby arms wrapped around his father’s neck. They’re laughing— Jon’s face is alight with joy. _My son,_ he says, his voice drenched in love. Or maybe he’s thinking it. Dany doesn’t know. He kisses Aemon’s forehead, and the way he holds their son brings tears to Dany’s eyes. _Our son,_ she thinks. Aemon presses his cheek to Jon’s shoulder, and when Jon turns, Dany sees pure contentment in their son’s violet eyes.

_Don’t take that. Don’t take that from me,_ she thinks, and she’s not even sure if she’s begging R’hllor for Jon’s life or Aemon’s. Perhaps both. Somehow— though she’s not sure she could explain it even to herself— the two anxieties are entwined. The two fears are mirrors of each other. _Maybe I’m just afraid to lose anyone else. Maybe I can’t bear any more loss. Maybe I’m afraid of what I will become if I do. The Mad King’s Daughter…the Mad King’s Daughter. The Mad King. The mad…_

_I could be mad,_ Dany says. She’s smiling. Her children rest against her: Aemon snoozing at her breast, Lyaella curled in the crook of her arm. _Happiness could be madness._

_No,_ their father says. Smiles. His fingers dance over Aemon’s soft hair— downy darkness, delicate divinity. _Happiness is greater._

_But in my arms, I hold the future,_ she says, and she feels her heart swell and press against her scar. She fears it might burst out. _In my arms, I hold the past._ Like Visenya, Aegon, Rhaenys…on and on. On and on…

_In my arms, I hold everything. Infinity and eternity— it came from me. It came from us. What could be madder than that? What could be madder?_

Lyaella and Aemon and Rhae — she stands with them in the heat of summer. The sunlight’s within her. They giggle and run around the Dragonpit…and then they’re all seated at a feast together, and they’re beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, her children, her heart…and then they’re on Dragonstone together…together…

_Together,_ she hears, rich and deep. It’s a voice that belongs to everyone and no one. _I meant it then. I mean it now. Together. Fire and blood make life, remember. Stop fearing what is yours. Stop fearing what you took with fire and blood. Does the queen tremble at the sight of her own throne? Does she? Does she?_

“Does she?” Grey Worm asks.

The hand against Dany’s forehead falls. “No. She’s cool. Your Grace? Can you hear me? Your Grace?”

Dany blinks, and Arya’s bedchambers shift into view. As it does, she becomes aware of the nausea wiring her stomach to her throat, the heat of the flames against her cheeks. Aethel touches her forehead again.

“Your Grace?” she asks gently. “Are you all right?”

Dany turns and meets her dark eyes. She nods stiffly.

“Yes,” she says hoarsely. She licks her dry lips and clears her throat slightly. “Yes. I was praying.”

Aethel and Grey Worm exchange a worried look, and Dany is worried, too, but not about herself. She feels disoriented: she’s not sure how much time has passed. She twists and looks behind her towards the bed, her heart squeezing within her chest, but Arya and Jon are exactly where they were before she sat in front of the fire. There’s a gap between them the size of her, and she feels drawn to fill it. She stands, and Grey Worm follows, his concern unrelenting. She’s not even aware of the tears cooling against her cheek until he brushes them away gently, his mouth set into a firm line.

“It is okay,” he tells her. His voice is soothing, certain. “Aethel says they will be fine.” He switches to Valyrian. “She doesn’t lie. She would tell me if they were going to die. They would have gotten much worse by now, she says.”

Dany is certain that Jon is safe. None of the things she saw in the flames could come to be without him. But she’s still worried about Arya. _Remember,_ she hears again, and then she thinks of something— a memory, or a flash she’d seen in the flames that was too quick for her to process before: her tiny dark-haired daughter giggling with a boy her age, black-haired and blue-eyed…

_Let it be Arya’s son,_ Dany pleads. _Let it be. Then I’ll know she’ll be okay, too…we have to all be okay. The three of us. She’s important, too. She’s important to Jon and I, and Lyaella, and she’ll be important to Aemon. She must be okay. Tell me she will be…show me she will be._

She waits, but all she sees in front of her are the tangled blankets atop Jon and Arya. She takes her place between them and draws them back to her sides, an arm around each of their shoulders and her heart in their hands. Jon shifts restlessly, and when Dany glances down at Arya, she’s greeted by the grey of her eyes. Her heart leaps as far as it can within the confines of her chest.

“Arya,” she murmurs. She turns over onto her side and leans over her sister’s supine form. Arya’s hair and sleep shift are plastered to her skin with sweat, and when Dany touches her forehead, she’s stunned to find it cooler than it’s been in hours. “Your fever broke. How do you feel?”

“Sweaty,” she answers hoarsely. Her eyelids drift shut again a moment later, but she reaches out and touches Nymeria’s coarse coat. The wolf is curled on her other side now— having moved from her place atop their legs when Dany rose to go to the fire— and Arya appears to finally understand that she’s here. Her eyes grow hazy with tears, and Dany hears her murmur the direwolf’s name in disbelief before she leans over and hugs the wolf’s back. Her words are muffled into Nymeria’s fur. “When did Nymeria…?”

“Before we found you in the bath. She was with Ghost. She’s been at your side this entire time.”

Arya’s arms tighten around Nymeria. “Good girl,” she whispers. Her voice sounds so young, and each word is swollen with affection. “Good wolf.”

Daenerys lets her talk softly to Nymeria and pet her in peace. She thinks of Drogon as she does, but she knows it’s different. Drogon is her child; Nymeria is Arya.

Finally, after Nymeria’s settled her face contently upon Arya’s lap and settled down to sleep, Arya reaches over and touches Dany’s shoulder. Her eyes are heavy. “Why are you still here, Daenerys?”

She would sound vexed if it weren’t for how weak she is. Dany can’t help but smile.

“Because I am the queen. I can go where I please.”

Arya considers that quietly, her eyes closed as she does. After a moment, she lifts her head slightly and looks over Dany towards Jon. Her expression twists. She falls back against the pillow.

“Jon—” her guilt is wild and unrestrained. Tears fill her eyes in an instant. Dany shakes her head at once.

“No, it’s not your fault. He’s okay. He’s going to be okay,” she assures her.

Either Arya can feel the heat still rolling off Jon in waves or she remembers what it felt like to be that ill because she doesn’t accept Dany’s words at face value. She turns her face as far from Dany as possible, withdrawing as much as she can, and that only makes the pain in Dany’s chest more pressing. She _needs_ to take care of her and Jon. She needs to. She doesn’t want her to pull away.

“I don’t want you here,” Arya tries to say, but the pain filling each syllable gives her true feelings away quite easily. Dany doesn’t even respond to that comment. As if she could be anywhere else.

When Dany slides to the end of the bed and climbs off it, she sees a brief moment of panic in Arya’s eyes as she glances down at her. But there’s no reason to worry: she’s not taking a step from this room. She goes to the pot of cooled tea she drank from earlier and pours Arya a mug, careful not to fill it too high. Arya’s resigned as Dany returns to her side and helps pull her upright so she’s leaning back against the headboard. Dany holds the mug to her lips for her first sip.

“I can hold it,” Arya insists, but Dany still keeps a grip on it for the next couple of sips just to be sure. “How’s Lyaella?”

Dany’s able to recall the words Sansa and Tyrion gave her easily, even though she’d been in a panicked haze at the time. Nothing else they talked about remains clear, but that does. Her baby does.

“Fine. A maester comes every hour or so to check her temperature. She’s been fine so far. Sansa said Davos is keeping her busy. They spent all afternoon with Cow One, and they were planning on taking their dinner to the Dragonpit…an ambitious plan: the dragons are going to bother them nonstop. Which was probably their intention.”

Dany’s certain Lyaella is confused and worried. This is the longest she’s been away from her parents. The more distracted she is, the better. The thought of her giggling and sneaking every bit of meat from her dinner plate to the greedy dragons crowded around her kindles a warm fire in Dany’s heart. For a moment in time, she wants nothing so much as she wants to hold her daughter in her arms and press her face against her soft, sweet-smelling curls. _I wish…_ she starts to say, but then she stops. There’s no point to it. Of course she wishes she could be with her daughter right now, but she can’t be. She has to get Arya and Jon well first, and then she has to make sure she’s healthy, too. Right now, beyond her persistent nausea, she feels fine, but that doesn’t mean she will in a couple of hours.

“If something happens to her—” Arya stops speaking abruptly, each word weighted with pain and guilt.

“I know,” Daenerys says. She sets her hand against Arya’s arm. “It won’t.”

Aethel checks on Arya and Jon. She warns Arya that her fever might return— _you’re not out of the woods yet. It often rebounds_ — but despite that fact, she tells her that she ought to take advantage of feeling better while she does, even if it’s only brief. Arya eats the tray brought up for her happily enough, sharing every couple of bites with Nymeria, and Dany insists on accompanying her on her walk to the privy just to make sure she doesn’t get dizzy or faint. She can tell Arya is humoring her, but she doesn’t care. She’s humored Arya and Jon many times, after all.

When they return, Arya seems more subdued. She talks less and crawls back beneath the heavy covers. Dany knows she’s feeling poorly again; nothing has to be said. She sits between Arya and Jon and alternates between the two, stroking their hair and whispering assurances. Jon’s not even conscious, but Dany still gives him every warm affirmation she can just in case some part of his mind can hear her.

“Fearing I’d make one of you sick was the worst thing. But when it got very bad…when it gets very bad…” Arya trails off weakly. For a moment, Dany thinks she won’t continue. But she does. “I thought about things I never even knew I wanted.”

Daenerys doesn’t ask her to expand upon that. She knows, if Arya wants to talk about something in detail, she’ll talk about it in detail. She just holds her close to her heart and listens.

“It was peculiar…to suddenly mourn something I never even knew was there to mourn. Some future I never anticipated.”

Dany nods. She understands that well enough, even if the things she’s thinking of are probably very different from what Arya is.

“What if it gets worse?”

Dany looks down at her at that. Arya’s eyes are vulnerable, pained. Just that one look tells her her fever is rising, and when she leans in and kisses her forehead lightly, she can feel the evidence of that clearly in the heat of her skin.

“You’re _not_ going to die.”

“I could.”

Dany won’t hear it. She won’t. She can’t.

“No,” she repeats firmly. Her tone is almost harsh. “You can’t. I forbid it. I _forbid it._ Do you understand me?”

Arya looks like she might smile for a moment. Her lips twitch up with the urge. But her smile never comes to fruition.

“Yes, Your Grace.”

Dany nods. She shifts her attention to Jon as he cries out in his sleep, but after holding him closer and watching him tersely for a few long moments, she determines his distress to be from his dreams more than his illness. His temperature is more or less the same, and his brow is furrowed as it is when he’s stuck in nightmares. She can’t do much more for him beyond kiss his face and hold him closer.

“Would you get me parchment?” Arya asks.

It takes Dany a second to process the question. It’s unexpected, and for a few moments, she’s confused by it. But it becomes clear quickly.

“I want to…there’s a letter I should send. Would you send it for me? If…” she stops. _I forbid it,_ Dany repeats in her head. “Would you?”

“Whatever you need. Anything.” She means it. She follows Arya’s instructions and locations the parchment and quill she’s seeking within the desk set along the south wall of the chambers. She brings it back with a book to bear against. She curls up and holds Jon as Arya writes, careful not to even accidentally peek at her paper. It’s not her concern. If Arya wants it to be, she’ll read it to her. In the meantime, Dany imagines that little black-haired boy with the blue eyes. She listens to Arya’s quill scratching against the parchment; that sound could be the future etching itself out in front of them. A life being changed. Her job is to support Arya no matter what she chooses, no matter what happens. She’s been very careful to do her best not to push Arya in one direction or another (even if, deep down, she wants to grab onto her with both hands and cling to her. To beg her to stay— to not ever leave.)

It takes Arya quite some time to finish it. Dany’s half-asleep by the time she does, plastered to Jon’s sweaty skin and exhausted from the day’s anxiety.

“Here,” Arya murmurs. Her hand trembles as she passes a heavy letter Dany’s way. “If something happens.”

Dany takes it. She holds it securely and meets Arya’s eyes. Hers are already drifting shut, her skin flushed and brows furrowed in discomfort.

“To Gendry?” Dany guesses.

“Yes.”

“All right.” She tucks the letter into a pocket on her dress and then presses her palm over it to check that it’s secure. “I will.”

Arya sets the book to the side and lays back down. She tugs on the blanket and pulls it as high as she can get it. Dany smiles as Arya scoots closer and leans her head against her arm. With her close like that, Dany’s wedged right between the flushed weight of both Jon and Arya, and it makes her feel safe. Their heat twists from something terrifying to something comforting.

“I won’t have to send it, though. You know that, right?” Dany murmurs. She leans her cheek against Arya’s hair. “You’re going to be just fine.”

She’s certain of it now. If R’hllor needs her, he’s not going to take away the people _she_ needs. He can’t. He _won’t._ She’s not meant to be alone. The dragon has three heads. _It must,_ she thinks, her own body sinking towards dreams. _It must have three heads. I always knew that. I am not alone now. We are three against the world, like Aegon and his sisters._

IV.

Jon drifts in and out of consciousness.

He has no idea how long he’s been lying here, fever-ridden and pained, but he’s not able to grasp onto coherency long enough to ask. He counts time in strange dreams when he’s sleeping and in the Maester’s medications when he’s briefly awake. He’s had to swallow a packet of herbs ten times by the time the room grows dark and quiet with night. He’s soaked with sweat by then, but he’s stopped trembling, and he no longer feels like he’s freezing to death. The maester removes the wet cloths from his skin, and he’s given a light blanket to cover with. He lets his wife cradle him to her breast like he’s a child, and as she brushes her fingers through his curls, deep exhaustion settles over him. He thinks he could sleep now, not toss back and forth fitfully and hover on the edge of consciousness. _Truly_ sleep. But Dany’s whispering to him, and what she’s whispering is more important than rest.

“Lyaella is still doing fine. I’ve been praying and watching the flames. Do you know what I saw?”

“My quick recovery?” he hopes. He longs for a time his head didn’t throb with pain, a time his bones weren’t heavy with restless aching. It feels very far away now. Only four other nights in his life have ever felt as long as this one. _No, five,_ he corrects himself, thinking of the time Lyaella was sick. _It seemed so similar to this, too,_ he thinks then. _I wonder if it_ was _this. If it was, maybe she’s immune already. Maybe R’hllor made sure she got it then, at a milder scale, so she’d be ready when this happened. So she’d be safe._

“And more,” Daenerys affirms. Her soft, warm hand takes his. He feels the smooth fabric of her silks against his palm. It takes him a moment to recognize the slight swell of her stomach beneath his hand. It’s only from the motion of her soft breaths that he places it. “He looks like you, Jon.”

Jon finds himself smiling. Perhaps it’s simply because this is the first time she’s been willing to speak of Aemon like this— like he’s already with them, like he’s a sure thing— or perhaps it’s because he loves the idea of that, of their son looking like him. Of having a son at all. He’s always longed for it, deep down. Her speaking of him is a gift, but what she’s saying is not quite true.

“Rhaegar,” Jon corrects. He channels his sparse energy into his hand; he strokes her stomach with his thumb. “He looks like Rhaegar, not me.”

“To me, he looks like you. But I know your face. I don’t know Rhaegar’s. I suppose he looks like the both of you.”

Her words are a balm to him, body and soul. He’s surprised at how much relief floods through him, at how quickly it soothes and settles his heart. He has been aching to talk to her about their son— aching to acknowledge the subtle swell of her lower stomach, the promise of life they created. But he’s been careful; he hasn’t wanted to upset her. He’s wanted to respect her wishes, and she was clear that she didn’t want to speak of Aemon. To have her acknowledge him now— to acknowledge visions of him— makes Jon smile. The sweetness of what’s to come in the future comforts and assures him. It makes the misery of now matter little.

She must feel the curve of it against her breast. Her lips press to his hair, and her fingers tighten gently over his.

“Do you want to hear more?”

He shivers; he’s not sure why. But her words tug at his heart and affect him deeply.

“Yes,” he tells her. His eagerness leaks from his heart, climbs up his throat, fills his voice. “I do. If you want to share it with me.”

She pulls his hand from her belly and brings it up to her lips to kiss. She cradles it to her cheek afterwards. He’s relieved at the mild temperature of her skin.

“I do,” she murmurs, and his heart burns with love. It’s a fever of its own. “I saw him and Lyaella…”

He rests there listening to the intermingled sound of her heartbeat and her words, warm and more comfortable than he’s been in hours (or perhaps forever.) She plays with his curls as she speaks, and he listens to every word, every pause, and every breath. She tells him about Aemon and Lyaella, about the brief flashes she’d seen of them. She describes everything she can remember with such detail that Jon finds himself missing the son he’s never met.

“I even saw their sister. Our other daughter,” she whispers.

She hesitates, and when her hand stills in his hair, Jon realizes she thinks he’s fallen asleep. He turns his face and kisses the slight ridge of her scar to show her that he’s still listening.

“She’s beautiful, tiny, and dark-haired. I saw her playing with a little boy her own age, but the boy she was with wasn’t our Aemon. He had bright blue eyes.”

“ _Blue_? Have you taken another man into our bed in the future?”

He’s joking, but he’s still a bit too weak for it to be delivered as dryly as he’d intended. Yet his wife understands anyway. She prods his hip— a scold— and then presses a smiling kiss to his forehead.

“I think he was Arya’s,” she admits.

“Arya’s got my eyes,” Jon reminds her reflexively.

“Mmm, yes, I know. But I can think of someone with blue.”

Jon understands then. He pictures Gendry’s eyes. He’s not sure how he feels about the prospect. Fine, he thinks, if the prospect takes Arya no farther than her wing in Rhaella’s Fortress.

“She wrote him a letter earlier. While you were sleeping. I think she’s still afraid she’s going to die.”

_Is she?_ he wants to ask. But he can’t. He feels his own life is more or less safe, knowing what he knows about the future of House Targaryen, but nothing has been guaranteed for Arya. Maybe Dany misinterpreted some random friend of their future daughter’s as Arya’s child to convince herself that Arya’s future is safe, too. To reassure her— or him.

Jon lifts his head and glances towards Arya, but she’s got her back to them. He wants to believe what Dany does. He needs to believe that. The alternative is too terrifying. For a moment, all he can think of is an echo of his own words from so long ago. _What do you know of my heart, priestess? What do you know of my sister?_

Nothing has truly changed— except that his heart bears two additional names now, soon to be three.

“Is she going to be all right?” It’s a foolish question. Dany isn’t the healer. But it’s her reassurance he craves.

“Yes,” Dany answers firmly. “She’s resting, and when she wakes, she’ll be better. You should be sleeping, too.”

He can’t get himself to let go fully and drift to sleep. It doesn’t take him long to determine why.

“I can’t,” he admits. He turns and looks at the window. It’s a full moon. It makes him think of his full heart, and he marvels at how empty it feels right now. “I haven’t kissed Lyaella goodnight.”

But he can’t kiss her goodnight, and that fact unsettles him. She must be so confused; she’s never lived a night of her life without him. Not one. From that first moment he took her from his wife’s weak, bloody hands, she was tied to his heart. She _slept over_ his heart — every night. How can he sleep if she isn’t close by? How can she?

“Sansa was here earlier. I told her to have Ser Davos tell Lyaella we’ll see her first thing in the morning. You’ll be better then, and if I’m to get sick, I’ll be feeling poorly by that time so we’ll know to keep me from her. But she must be all right, Jon. She was around Arya as much as you— more, actually— and she hasn’t gotten sick yet. I don’t think she’s going to.”

If that were true without a doubt, she could come there to them now. Just the thought fills his heart with a longing so deep it aches in the center of his chest. He would’ve given anything to set eyes on his little daughter, to make sure she’s okay, to ask her how her day was. He doesn’t even know what she’s been doing all this time. She’s half him; how could he not know how she spent her afternoon and evening? It’s wrong— unnatural.

“Did Sansa say how she was?”

He’s desperate for more information beyond _she’s not sick._ That leaves a multitude of dark possibilities. She could be healthy and still be unhappy. She could be healthy and still be frightened. It’s Jon’s job above all other’s to make sure she’s not frightened or upset…so how can he rest not knowing if she is?

“She said she’s being kept busy. Ser Davos had her in the fresh air as much as possible earlier. They spent a good while on the trails with Cow One and Bran, and then Ser Davos took her to the Dragonpit to see Moonbloom.”

Relief begins seeping into the tightness of his heart, but it’s not a thorough reprieve.

“What about now? Now that it’s nighttime?” Distraction in the sun might work as long as the sun is out, but now that they’ve undoubtedly retired to bed, how is Lyaella handling it? Are Ser Davos or Sansa letting her listen to their heartbeat, or is the unfamiliar silence of the night frightening her?

To this, Dany has no answer. And her worried silence tells Jon she’s just as concerned as he is. He wants to tell her to go to their baby— she needs Dany more than he does right now— but he’s not certain that’s the safest thing, and Lyaella must be safe. As safe as she can be. They can’t do anything about the exposure she’s already had.

“She’ll get through it. It’ll be morning soon.” Her voice breaks, spoiling what was clearly meant to be reassuring words. She reaches up and pulls him back against her chest. She rests her face into his hair as he melts into her soft warmth. “I can’t wait until she has her brother. So she’s never alone again. Even in times like this, she’ll have someone. They were always together every time I saw them in the flames…that’s what I want. Them together. That’s the way that it should be.”

Jon, who has spent nearly every day with his sister at his side for the past three years, agrees wholeheartedly. He can’t imagine his life without Arya; his childhood would’ve been darker, colder, emptier, and his adulthood, too. He wants Lyaella and Aemon to be just as close. And _Rhae,_ too, whenever she comes to be. Jon finds it harder to think of her; Aemon has been a reality for him since his conversation in Aegon’s Garden with R’hllor, tangible and inevitable, but ‘Rhae’ has largely remained a hazy mystery. He knows little about her beyond her appearance and what she’ll come to be called.

“I agree,” he tells his wife. 

He drifts to sleep to the gentle thrumming of his wife’s heart, and he dreams of Lyaella and Aemon. In his dreams, they’re a unit; he gazes at them as they splash in the steely waters of Dragonstone, and he feels that they were always meant to be in this world together. _A Targaryen alone is a terrible thing. That’s true, that’s true, that’s true._

His fever must return; his dreams grow stranger and more fitful. He buries himself alive on the beach, gouging into the wet sand and then packing it over himself ’til he inhales gritty sand that shreds the lining of his throat to bloody ribbons. He burrows down and down, held tight in the clenched fist of terror and dread, gagging on flaps of bloody flesh, until he’s suddenly in the cave he’d once taken Dany to. He makes love to her against the wall, and as she throws her head back and cries out, her hair rubs against the ancient drawing of the Others. Every time he thrusts into her, her hair smudges the drawing, and he watches through half-closed eyes, ecstasy stringing up tighter and tighter within him, as her hair erodes the drawing and disappears the Others…by the time he shatters and fills her, there’s nothing there behind her hair but stone. _It’s so good,_ she tells him, and she’s throbbing around him, and his skin is tingling starlight… _It’s so good for us to bring more. They’re the sword in the darkness. The watchers on the wall. They are the shield that guards the realms of men…fuck me again, the night is coming…the night is coming…take me again, Jon…again…again…thrice more, I love you. Thrice more, I need you…stay within me…a kingdom within a kingdom…in our joining there is power…power to make life…power to make light…power to make shadows…thrice more, Jon…Jon…Aegon…_

He could live in that colorful urgency all night long, but they don’t stay. He walks atop the edge of the Wall, Aemon just ahead of him, and he can’t tell whether he’s suffocating from the ice of the air or his fear as he watches his young son teeter. Aemon walks the Wall like a tightrope, each foot set precariously in front of the other, but there’s nothing to cushion the fall but the promise of an icy death. _Let’s go back inside. I want to take you inside,_ he tells Aemon. His chest is tight. He reaches out to grab Aemon’s elbow, to steady him, but he knows any touch to his son will throw him off balance and send him careening off the Wall. _I have to walk it three times, Father,_ Aemon says. _I have to walk east to west, west to east, south to north._ Jon asks: _Not north to south? Not north to south? What about south? What about home, Aemon?_

He reaches for Aemon. And he falls, leaving his son behind, teetering alone on that wall. As he tumbles towards his death, he sees a flash of silver— his daughter— and his heart twists and flails. He falls. He falls…

He feels as if he falls for days, weeks, months, years. His life rips and tears in front of his eyes in bursts of bright color, like riding breakneck through trees teeming with autumn leaves. He sees all and nothing, and in both things, Dany. His wife grows great with child— cries as she labors— grows great with child again— cries as she labors— grows great with child again— cries…

He labors in the sun, hefting sheets of glass. Bright, colorful shards come to together on the iron table set in front of him and his tiniest daughter. She smiles at the image they’ve created. Her hair is black as raven, and she speaks with her hands. When the bells begin to sound, she doesn’t flinch: she doesn’t hear the iron tones. What _she_ hears does not come from outside of them. It comes from within.

He drinks frothing green flames from a crystalline mug, and they set fire to his insides as they go down; he’s burning alive, but it’s quiet, and no one notices…from the other end of the council chamber table, his wife advises Lyaella and Aemon, her voice steady and calm. The light hits the gold upon their children’s heads…they’re headed the way the compass points…and he melts down to nothing…a set of bones in flickering green. A king turned nothing…

He digs and digs and digs. Halfway through his task, he realizes he’s not simply digging beneath Dragonstone. He’s digging inside his grave.

_I was afraid I would die,_ he hears Arya say, her voice feeble. _There are things I never got the chance to say. Decisions I never got the chance to make. That’s what frightened me the most. That and leaving the people I love behind. Leaving you behind. Never getting to meet the baby…never seeing who Lyaella becomes…I was frightened…and now I’ve made Jon sick—_

_That’s not your fault,_ Dany answers. She’s whispering. Jon isn’t sure if this is happening in his grave or in his sickbed. _His fever is breaking again. Aethel says he’s going to be fine. And I’m fine. Lyaella is, too. She never got sick last night. Aethel says it’s highly unlikely that she will at this point._

_I hope she’s right. Do you think she is?_

_As right as a person can be, yes._

_Do you still have Gendry’s letter?_

There’s a pause. Dany sounds thoughtful when she responds. _Do you want it back?_

_No. I don’t know. Do you have it?_

_I still have it. I haven’t left this bed._

There’s another lull. Jon decides this conversation is truly happening. He’s becoming aware of the torrents of sweat sticking the covers to his skin and his clothing to his body. His body aches, but not like it did before, and his headache is dulled. His throat no longer sears and throbs as it had in his fevered dreams.

“I think I’ll tell him those things rather than send them,” Arya finally says. “It will be a long while until the baby comes. I may go to Storm’s End. Just for a bit. But only if you’re okay with that.”

“You don’t need my permission to leave, Arya.”

“No. But I want it.”

“You already have it.” Dany’s voice is soft, gentle. “I want you to do what you choose. What you want. What will make you happiest.”

“I still don’t truly know what that is. What if I leave and I don’t feel like _me_ anymore? What if I leave and nowhere else ever feels like home?”

“Then you come back. We’re always going to be here.”

“Not _always_ ,” Arya refutes at once. “No one is. No one can be. The last time I left my home, I lost it forever.”

“ _This_ home will still be here. We’ll still be here. I swear it. Jon and I aren’t like everyone else.”

Jon guesses there’s little Arya can come up with to refute that statement. He and Dany have both been resurrected, after all.

“What if something happens? And I’m not here? What if you need me?” _What if I need you?_ She doesn’t say it, but she doesn’t have to.

“Storm’s End is only a two-day journey at most, and if we need to get you here quicker, we can take Drogon. But you don’t _have_ to go, just as you don’t have to stay. You just need to decide what you want. What you need.”

Arya’s voice is thicker when she replies. “I need my brother to be okay.”

“He will be,” Dany assures her. “You pulled through and he will, too.”

Dany’s hand settles on Jon’s forehead. She brushes his damp hair back gently, and Jon allows himself to stir at the warmth of her touch. When he opens his eyes, he’s greeted by the gentle light of dawn. His sister and his wife are sitting on the other side of the bed, Nymeria at their feet. Arya looks shockingly better than she did yesterday: her fever appears to have dissipated, and her hair is pulled back in a wet braid as if she’s recently bathed. Jon is certain the braid is his wife’s work.

“How are you feeling?” Dany asks him.

He’s not sure. Better than yesterday, but he’s still sore, and he feels disoriented from his dreams.

“All right,” he hedges.

Dany’s lips press briefly against his forehead. “You’re cool. How’s your head?”

“Better,” he answers. He reaches up and rubs absently at his temple. He brings his chin to his chest experimentally, finding the stiffness gone from his neck and the pressurized pain lifted from his skull. “The medicines worked.”

“Or time. Or luck. Or fate. One of them,” Dany agrees. “Or perhaps all of them. Either way, the maesters are using the medication protocol they tried with you and Arya on everyone in the sickhouses. They were throwing everything at the wall and waiting to see what stuck, but I think perhaps all of it did. The combination certainly didn’t hurt you two, anyway.”

Jon’s sure he and Arya being ill made the maesters more desperate than they have been thus far; they’d likely never admit that, but the stress of having the king and the Commander of the Royalguard’s lives in their hands must have inspired new ideas and attempts. If it turns out to save everyone, all their pain will be worth it by far.

His wife holds onto his arm and walks with him as he makes his way to the privy. He thinks about telling her that he’s got it— he’s not dizzy whatsoever, and he feels strong enough— but she’s so intent on her task that he leaves her be. She puts as much care into walking alongside him as she puts into complex council meetings, and by the time he makes it to the heavy door, he finds himself wondering if maybe he _did_ need her assistance, after all. Her determination is very convincing.

He sits at the table near the balcony when they return to Arya’s room. He avoids Arya’s eyes as Dany fusses over both of them; they try their hardest to remain solemn. But every now and then as they eat and drink, Jon’s gaze intersects with Arya’s, and they both have to turn away quickly to keep from laughing.

“We’re really fine now,” Arya tries. “I swear it, Daenerys.”

Dany regards her evenly. “You don’t know that. Aethel said you have to be without fever for a full day before we can say you’re completely recovered.”

Jon’s heart plummets to his toes. “An entire day?” he asks, thinking of Ly. He’d assumed he’d be fine to see her by lunch. The prospect of going another night without her is tormenting.

Arya and Dany don’t seem to process his question.

“That may be true from a maester’s perspective, but we’re fine enough to put jam on our own bread, stir our own tea, and walk alone to the privy,” Arya continues.

Dany scoffs this time. “Brave of you to complain when you and Jon make a hobby of coddling me when I’m unwell—”

“You _died in front of us_ , Daenerys, I was picking your blood out from beneath my fingernails for days—!”

“You could’ve died! Jon could’ve died, too! Many people have!”

“We _didn’t,_ though. It goes like this: if you truly and properly die in front of someone, those people get to coddle you for the rest of your second-life, and if you only get sick but pull through, people get to coddle you so long as you’re ill and not a moment longer.”

“Oh, that’s how it is, is it?”

“Yes,” Arya nods. “That’s how it is.”

Dany arches an eyebrow. Before Arya can say a word in protest, she’s snatched Arya’s plate. As she cuts Arya’s fruit into more manageable-sized pieces— the size she would give Lyaella— Jon thinks he’s rarely seen her so stubborn.

“I’m the queen. I’ll say what is lawful coddling and what it is not. Eat your fruit.”

“Tell her I’m right, Jon,” Arya demands. “We’re fine.”

“We _are_ fine,” he agrees, but he doesn’t comment on their playful spat. He’s too busy dwelling on the question nobody answered before. “If I’m still feeling well by this evening, surely that will mean it’s safe enough for me to see Lyaella?”

“I should think so,” Dany assures him. “I don’t intend for her to be kept from us for much longer.” 

_I miss her,_ Jon thinks. His expression twists unhappily. Not for the first time, he wonders how highborn parents can bear to leave their children largely in the care of wet nurses and septas; he and Dany have been regarded as paranoid and overtly-sentimental by some due to their constant presence in their daughter’s life, but Jon can’t imagine the alternative. He knows that view won’t ever change. Lyaella should be with her family, her blood, not random caretakers, no matter how well-intentioned and doting they may be. She should be with him.

They’re quite a worthless trio the rest of the afternoon. They lounge about on the bed, talking and napping, disturbed every half-hour by Aethel or another Maester as more medications are administered and their temperatures are checked. Dany remains fever-less, and every time he asks about Lyaella (which is every time the maesters come in) they assure him that she’s still well.

“Perhaps Viserys was right,” Jon tells Dany, half-joking. “Maybe Targaryens are more resistant to sickness than others.”

He’d like to think that. Daenerys is more Targaryen than he is, and Lyaella, too. He knows it probably has nothing to do with them remaining unscathed, but it’s comforting to think that it is. That would mean that resistance would be with them all their lives. And with his son and youngest daughter, too.

“If that were true, you’d be fine, too,” Daenerys dismisses.

He and Arya talk briefly about the strange dreams they suffered through whilst sick, but neither of them share many details about those dreams. Going by how dazed Arya appears as she speaks of them, the specifics are as bizarre and unsettling as Jon’s. He can hardly remember them now— only brief flashes of the different settings and the way he’d felt— but he knows they were troubling. He’s relieved to know that Arya had some of the same, though; that _must_ mean they were simply a byproduct of their illness and not prophetic.

When the Conclave _finally_ decides it’s safe for the princess to be reunited with them, Jon can’t get out of Arya’s chambers quickly enough. He bathes, dresses, and then hurries to the courtyard outside Rhaella’s Fortress, Arya and Daenerys a few steps behind him. Davos and Tyrion are already there, Lyaella sat between them on the bench and Ghost at her feet, and Jon is the first person her eyes land on. The smile that illuminates her face makes tears prick at the back of Jon’s eyes. He’s across the courtyard in an instant, a heartbeat; Lyaella runs to him, her smile never faltering, and he sweeps her up into his arms. He hugs her tightly, his face pressing against her soft curls, his chest wrenched open with love.

“Daddy!” Lyaella exclaims, her words muffled against him. She hugs his neck tighter. “I saw Davo’s boat!”

Jon smiles. He sways them back and forth and kisses her hair. “You did? How was that?”

“I want to go! On the boat! Davo say— Davos sayed— you don’t like boats.” She lifts her face from his shoulder and sits taller in his arms. She meets his eyes; hers are alight with happiness and curiosity. “Why, _Fawder_?”

Right then, he can’t even think of why. There’s no room in his mind or heart for anything negative, much less the horrid memories Davos would have been thinking of when he said that to Lyaella.

“That doesn’t matter now. I’m glad you had fun with Davos. I missed you so much.” She smiles at that. Her eyes are grey-plum beneath the sun as she leans in and hugs him again. “How are you feeling, Ly?”

“Like I want to hug you all day,” she answers, and he doesn’t doubt her words for a moment. Because he feels the same way. “You were gone so long.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I was sick.” He hugs her rather than kisses her, for fear he’s still not one-hundred percent well. “I hope you were able to sneak hundreds of figs in my absence.”

He gathers that nobody told her he was sick. She doesn’t seem to hear his comment about figs at all; she leans back in his arms and looks up at him, her expression plummeting.

“Dying-sick?” she asks, shocked.

“Yes. But I’m all better now,” he reassures her. She presses her palm over his heart, her light brows still furrowed. “I’m all right, I promise.”

“People die when they have the dying-sick,” she tells him. Her tone implies that she thinks he’s not aware of that fact.

“I know. And I didn’t.”

Her mind is wiped clean at the sight of her mother as she comes to stand at Jon’s side. Lyaella dives for her arms and buries her face in her mother’s loose hair. She trembles in excitement as she hugs her.

“Mamma! I saw a _boat_!”

“Oh?” Daenerys asks, appearing genuinely interested. “When? Whose?”

“It’s Davo’s— it has a big sail that’s _wed_ — we can go on it, Mamma! We can!”

Lyaella’s so excited that Jon is certain Daenerys won’t say a word to disappoint her, even if it’s unlikely that she’s going to get on a boat again any time soon. She’s saved from having to respond to that comment at all, though, as Lyaella seizes her in another tight hug. “I cry last night, Mamma, I want you and Daddy, so much I wanted you.”

“Oh, I know, darling,” Daenerys murmurs. “We wanted you with us just as much.”

Lyaella reaches up and touches Dany’s cheek gently. “You were dying-sick?”

“No, I was taking care of Daddy and Arya. They were sick, but they’re better now.” Jon knows what Daenerys is checking for as she carefully kisses Lyaella’s forehead. She smiles softly as she pulls back. She hugs Lyaella. “Tell us everything we missed. What did you do? What did you eat? Did you play with your friends? Was Storm naughty?”

Lyaella is so eager to share everything with them that she stutters and trips over her words many times, each sentence crashing and overrunning the one that follows it. She falls into Arya’s arms as she joins them, and the three of them sit together beneath the giant oak in the courtyard as Lyaella chatters on and on. Jon’s heart both swells with love and pangs with regret every time he hears a new word she’s picked up; she picks new ones up every day now, and she’s gathered some in the time they spent apart. It hurts to know he wasn’t there, but Lyaella understands why they had to be apart, and that makes it easier to bear.

Jon wants nothing more than to sit with Dany and Arya at his side and laugh and talk with his little daughter forever. The joy of it makes up for the misery of his sickness— by far.

They take their supper there in that same spot, the cool night chilling their skin. Lyaella sits wedged between Ghost and Nymeria and giggles as Arya tells her all about her ‘elephant dream’. Jon doesn’t know if this is truly a fever dream Arya had or just something she made up now to entertain Lyaella, but it’s comical enough either way. A little later, after they’ve chatted the night away and cleared their plates, Lyaella curls against Jon’s side and yawns.

“I saw my _buver_ in my dreams,” she tells them. “But no _efants_.”

“I saw him, too,” Jon admits. He strokes Lyaella’s hair off her forehead. It’s still cool. “What did your brother do in your dreams?”

“We _payed_ and rode our _dagons_ ,” she answers, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. And to her, it must be. Jon is certain she sees him all the time. “When can he be here?”

Jon parts his lips to explain that it’ll be a number of moons yet, but Daenerys beats him to it. She reaches out and takes Lyaella’s little hands, tugging her gently into her lap. Lyaella curls against the front of her body happily.

“He’s here with us now,” she says. Jon looks over at her, somewhat startled by that comment. It’s one thing for her to talk of Aemon to try and comfort and cheer Jon up while he’s sick, and another for her to speak so certainly of him to their daughter. She hasn’t wanted to all this time, too afraid she’ll lose the pregnancy and Lyaella will be confused and devastated. Whatever she saw in those flames while Jon was unconscious has clearly washed away some of her fear.

Lyaella looks over Daenerys’s shoulder, and then behind herself, and then over towards the rows of rose bushes. Arya laughs softly at that.

“Where?” Lyaella asks eagerly.

Daenerys meets Jon’s eyes. He sees her question, and he’s suddenly not sure if he’s ready to broach this topic with Lyaella. But the fact that Dany is means much more to him than he ever imagined it would. It makes everything feel so much closer— more real. He moves over and wraps his arm around his wife’s shoulders, holding her close.

“Here,” Dany admits. She takes Lyaella’s little hand and presses it to her stomach. It’s unlikely Lyaella can detect the slight swelling that’s already begun, but she seems to sense something, anyway. She watches her mother, her gray eyes wide and serious, her hand planted where Dany placed it. “I have a baby in my belly. He’ll grow here for a bit, and then he’ll be born.”

Lyaella stares at Dany. Jon sees Arya press her hand over her mouth, struggling not to laugh at Lyaella’s expression. She almost looks skeptical.

“ _Aemon_? My _buver_? He’s in your _belly_?” There’s a short pause. Lyaella’s eyes flash from her mother’s stomach to their empty dinner plates, and then she looks back up at Dany. Her brow furrows so low over her eyes that her nose scrunches up. “Like our figs _?_ ”

Arya _does_ laugh then, and Jon feels his throat tickle with a similar urge. He presses his lips together and suppresses it, though. Dany smiles.

“No, not really like that,” she reassures Lyaella. “He’s not in my stomach. He’s in another part of me, a part right next to my stomach. A special place where babies grow. It’s called the womb.”

That somehow makes her appear _more_ concerned, not less. She moves her hand to the side and stares, as if she thinks her hand was hiding some sign pointing to whatever her mother is talking about.

“Where’s the womb?” she asks.

Dany takes her hand again and moves it back to her lower abdomen. “Here.”

Lyaella looks down at her own stomach, clearly deeply confused. Dany laughs softly. She nudges Lyaella’s chin up and leans in to kiss her nose.

“You were in my womb once, too, when you were a tiny baby,” she tells her. “When _you_ were in here, my belly went all the way out to here.” She nudges Lyaella to the side for the sake of holding her hand way out, miming cradling her once-swollen stomach.

Lyaella giggles at that. She sets her hand in the air near Daenerys’s. “That’s _big_ ,” she says.

“Yes. In no time at all, my stomach will be that big again. What do you think about that?”

Lyaella laughs, but it’s a bit bemused. She turns and looks at Jon questioningly. Jon bites back his smile and nods solemnly.

“It’s true,” he tells their daughter. “You were in there once. You would kick so hard sometimes that it shocked me.”

She appears disturbed for the first time. “No!” she cries. “No! I didn’t kick! Not my _muver_!”

“It’s not really _kicking_ ,” Daenerys comforts her. “Not on purpose. It’s just moving about.”

“I didn’t,” Lyaella persists, upset. “It wasn’t me, Mamma. I never kick you.”

Jon knows better than to argue with her on that. She’ll understand what they mean once she feels Aemon kick.

“All right, sweetling,” Daenerys says. She accepts Lyaella’s clumsy kiss and strokes her back reassuringly. “Of course.”

Lyaella appears to think hard about what Daenerys has said for a while. She doesn’t say anything else about it until they’re back in their own bedchambers settling her to bed. She curls over Jon’s heart and then reaches out to touch Dany’s stomach.

“When does he get out?”

“Several moonturns. Not too long,” Dany answers. Lyaella turns her face and hides it against Jon’s tunic. She frowns; Jon feels the downturned motion over his scar. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s dark,” she says first, and then: “He’s all alone.”

It’s such an odd thing for her to say— such an odd worry to have when Jon expected a hundred different worries. Things like: _how did he get in there? How does he come out? Does it hurt you, Mamma?_

Jon tightens his arms around Lyaella. “ _Alone_? Not at all. He’s with Mamma all the time. He never has to be away from her. That’s definitely not ‘all alone.’”

He’s not sure if it’ll cheer her up as he says it, but thankfully, it does. She turns her face to the side and looks back at her mother.

“Even when you’re sleeping,” she says.

“Right,” Daenerys smiles. “He’s still with me then. And every time you and Daddy are with me, you’re with him, too. And you know what else?”

“What?” Lyaella asks. She’s peering at Dany like she’s looking at something magical and wondrous.

“It’s not scary-dark in here,” she assures her, her own hand pressing to her stomach. “It’s lovely-dark. Warm and safe— like home.”

Lyaella smiles.

“I remember,” she says wisely. And of course she doesn’t, but Jon smiles at that comment, anyway. “I want to hug him goodnight, Mamma.”

Dany opens her arms for Lyaella, and Lyaella slides over to her. She wraps her arms around Dany’s waist and hugs her stomach gently, her cheek pressed against the spot Aemon resides. She rests there quietly, Dany’s fingers stroking slowly through her curls, and soon, she’s fast asleep. Jon feels his heart tighten, each beat of it echoing around the void of his chest— unheard. As he looks down at the moonlight glowing against her silver hair, he thinks: _maybe she doesn’t need my heartbeat anymore. Maybe she’s growing up._ Has a thought ever made him so sad?

“What is it?” Dany asks softly.

He looks up and meets her gaze. He can’t help but be honest.

“I think I just realized she’s not a baby anymore.” His eyes sear at once. He regrets saying it aloud.

“In some ways. In others, she always will be. Time can’t change that.”

_And nothing can change time._ For a moment, he feels a tug in his gut like he’s slipped from the edge the Wall, and he sees his young son alone up there, his hair a splash of dark against a world of ice— a world of danger.

His face must betray his distress. His wife leans forward carefully and kisses his forehead. But he’s not feverish, and she sees that quickly enough. Just as she sees to the center of him.

“Change is frightening,” she tells him, and he feels a rush of understanding. “I think there’s a lot of it coming.”

He’s petrified with fear for a small moment in time, a moment where he lies there and thinks of all the things he’s afraid to lose, like Lyaella’s tiny hand in his or Arya’s constant presence.

“We’ve got to think of all the things we stand to gain, not the things we could lose,” she tells him. At the back of Jon’s mind, he hears Lord Tyrion’s voice: _I think, in times of confusion, it’s important to remember the things we do know._ “It’s difficult, I know.”

“Yes,” Jon agrees.

She leans closer. It takes her a few moments and a couple of careful nudges against their daughter, but she’s able to slide Lyaella over enough to reach Jon fully. He closes his eyes as she kisses him. Afterwards, his forehead rests against her shoulder, and her nails drag soothingly against the nape of his neck.

“At one time, _this_ was a change,” she murmurs. “Being loved like this…the way you love me. I never had that before you. And at one time, Lyaella was a change. Being a parent— that was the greatest change of all. And look how lovely life is now. That’s what I’ve been reminding myself when I get frightened. In five years, we’ll look back, and the way things are now will seem strange to us— we won’t be able to imagine our life without the changes to come.”

Jon kisses her neck gently. “You must’ve seen something wonderful in the flames. My dreams weren’t as nice.”

“Tell me about them.”

He nearly does. He wants to. He thinks they’ll make more sense with her input.

But he doesn’t. She’s so light in his arms, so happy and relaxed. So sure, so at ease. How can he take that from her? How can he return her to the way she’d been before— frightened, uneasy? Expecting loss at the turn of every hour? Dreams aren’t always just dreams. She knows that. He knows that. Who’s to say what his were? Who’s to know? A fever makes you addled, but an addled brain is an open one.

“They don’t matter,” he lies. He nuzzles his nose against her collarbone. “They didn’t even make sense. Tell me more about what you saw. That’s what I want to talk about.”

She’s smiling as she kisses his curls. “That’s what I want to talk about, too.”

They hold each other, and with every word that falls graceful from her lips, Jon pushes his hazy dreams further and further away. Eventually, he hopes, they’ll be gone from his mind entirely. More likely, though, they’ll live in that dark place he buried every terrible thing Bloodraven showed him. _My mind is a graveyard,_ he thinks. He strokes Dany’s hair. _Just as much as it’s a garden._

In his dreams that night, he digs up the corpse of everyone he ever knew and lost. Between each rib, bursting through rotting flesh teeming with white, writhing maggots, a bright green sprout buds and blooms. _A graveyard is a garden if you plant in it. A graveyard is a garden if you live in it. A graveyard is a garden if you feed it. We all sprout._

He wakes suddenly in the night, a sharp pain digging into his ribs. For a moment, he’s terrified; he breaks out in a cold sweat, and his hand flies down towards his ribs, reaching for the seedling bursting through his flesh—

His hand makes contact with Lyaella’s little elbow. Sometime during the night, she made her way back to him. Her head rests heavily over his heart, and her little chest rises and falls with each deep, relaxed breath. Jon calms at once, his body sinking back into the embrace of the mattress, the dread from his nightmare easing. He sets his hand against his daughter’s back, and he counts each of her breaths. _One, two, three…_

Whatever he dreams after that, he doesn’t remember it by the time he wakes.


	5. What We Want (And What We Don't)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your patience, comments, and kudos! It feels like I spent 75 years on this chapter. Thanks again to those still reading 💙💙 this chapter leans hard into the M-rating...just a head's up!

I.

_Dear Arya,_

_I am thrilled to write that I have beaten your record of twenty-two. At midday, just after our meal, I saw my thirtieth dragonfly this moonturn. It was a bright, vivid blue— I believe, per our last revision of the rules, that the blue ones count as two, do they not? It seems the more I look for them, the more they show up. I shouldn’t say it’s the gods favoring me, but thirty is a lovely number indeed…_

_Lord Tyrion is sending a response to Gendry’s questions in a separate letter. Reinforcing the levees was on the agenda for next quarter, but if your council sees the issue as immediate, we will do what needs to be done to expedite it. The people here pray for a calm storm season. They pray for you, in fact. As do I. Know that when I push I am pushing as a sister, not as a queen, but Jon and I would be very pleased to have you back home. Even if only for a short visit. We worry for you. Lyaella asks when you are returning every single night. She fears Aemon won’t ‘remember you’ when he’s born; Jon and I have not been successful at explaining to her that he won’t strictly remember_ anyone _when he’s born._

_On the matter of prayers, I have been getting some double-edged ones from the High Septon and his followers. My visits to the temple have not been overlooked. Yesterday, the High Septon formally requested the Right of Blessing at Aemon’s birth. Tyrion informed me that it is the highest, most sacred honor, traditionally bestowed only upon male heirs. Despite that aggravating fact, I might have relented if it weren’t for the specifics of the ceremony. Truly, Arya, I am not against the Faith of the Seven, nor am I naive to the fact that I will sometimes have to appease the masses to ensure peace. But this ‘blessing’ is performed throughout the birthing process, and the thought of someone other than you and Jon at my side causes me great anxiety. Maester Aethel is another matter; she must be there. But I do not trust the High Septon enough to allow him entrance to Rhaella’s Fortress. Thus, allowing him into my birthing room is an unimaginable thought, both for me and for Jon. I carry immense conflict over this. I would be grateful for your thoughts._

_I’m sure Jon has already written you about this— or will soon do so— but Lyaella has started reading. She still needs help with most words, but help once is all she needs: she picks up on new words almost immediately. The scholars and Maesters have been abuzz with excitement over it all week. It is yet another way she takes after Rhaegar. Samwell says he first read extremely young, too. People often joked that my mother swallowed a book and flashlight whilst carrying him. I will let Jon tell you how it all began…he is elated. I never took him for bookish, but he has been smiling about this for days now. I can’t imagine there ever lived a father prouder of their girl than our Jon is of our Lyaella. Write her a letter, won’t you? It will bring her such joy. She will carry it around and study it with a focus to rival Lord Tyrion’s._

_Aemon continues to reassure me frequently by making his presence and good health well-known. He is both larger and more active than any of my other babies ever were at this point; if it weren’t for how studiously I was tracking my moonblood prior to his conception, I would think I was further along than I previously thought. But Aethel says it will likely be another three or so moonturns— less if he comes early as Lyaella did, which she says is possible, though we are cautiously hopeful that he won’t. It must be said that I was under great pressure prior to my first two early births. I am hopeful that, in the absence of trauma and impossible stress, things will be easier this time._

_I fear I will think of a thousand other things I wish to tell you in the time between letters. I am still unaccustomed to not being able to speak to you first thing every morning. How are things with you? Has Gendry’s burn healed? Please, write back as soon as you can. If absence makes the heart grow fonder, mine will soon burst open._

_All my love,  
Daenerys_

_——————_

_Arya,_

_Ly has begun reading. She has been deeply jealous of your letters to Dany and I—_ _jealous that we are able to talk to you in the ‘special raven way’— and she has been insisting since you first wrote to us that she is going to learn, too. We humored it: we let Lord Tyrion take her to and from the library often, we arranged extra tutoring at midday each day, we let her examine every letter or report read aloud in council meetings, and as I wrote last time, she has been taking your letters to bed with her every night. She wakes with ink smudges on her cheek nearly every morning. I myself have read so many books to her at night that we have exhausted all children’s tomes and nearly every book on our family’s history (the magnitude of that task cannot be overstated). Last night, I read her_ Conquest of Dorne _for the third time._ _She was interested as she always is, but Dany read her_ Ten Thousand Ships, _and she admitted it was ‘much better’. I thought you would appreciate that._

_I have followed your advice from your last letter, and I have begun training with Longclaw again. I have to get re-accustomed to it; I have forgotten how particular it is. But you are right: it would be wrong not to pass it down to my own children as Mormont wished. Dany holds no grudge against it, and so I am trying my best not to, either. The sight of it has finally stopped making me sick. Perhaps, by the time you return, I will be familiar enough with it again to beat Needle._

_Dany has asked me not to badger you any more than she already has (her own words), but you are my little sister: it is my duty to badger you. When do you plan to come home? Dany’s time draws closer with each day that passes, and I need you here when it arrives. I think I need you here for it even more than Dany does. Sometimes—_

“Oh, for _fuck’s sake_!”

Gendry’s pained exclamation pulls Arya’s eyes from her brother’s letter. She rises from the settee, her body twisting in the direction of Gendry’s labored breaths. She hears the sound of something heavy thudding against a hard surface from the other end of the solar (likely the glass bottle of pain potion being slammed back down on the table). She’s got an eyebrow cocked when he steps through the doorway, his teeth gritted and a cold compress held against his burnt forearm. Arya observes him for a quiet moment.

“Don’t,” he growls. He stamps his way past her, headed towards his (their) bedchambers. Arya sets the letter down on the settee and follows undeterred. 

“I told you it was a bad idea.”

Gendry sits heavily on the bed. He kicks off his boots and then lifts the compress carefully, peeking down at his wound. His expression tells Arya all she needs to know. She feels her stomach invert with concern, but beneath that concern is genuine irritation.

“It’s bleeding again, isn’t it?”

Gendry presses the compress back over it.

“No, m’lady,” he answers through gritted teeth. It’s testy. Arya doesn’t rise to his bait.

“It is,” Arya persists. He’s pallid with pain. Her frustration swells. Gendry turns his back to her stubbornly as she sits beside him on the bed, but she reaches for his burnt arm all the same. “Give it here. Let me see.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Let me look!”

“No!”

“Yes!” Arya snaps.

“Is that an _order_?”

“Yes, it bloody well is!”

There’s a heavy pause, and then Gendry looks over his shoulder at her. His lips twitch only once, but it’s enough. Arya feels a smile tug at the corners of her own lips, and soon, they’re both laughing. Gendry turns back to face her, his body softening, and Arya sets gentle fingers against the compress.

“You’re so stubborn,” she mutters. She feels his smiling gaze as she gingerly lifts the compress and peers at his burn; despite the thick protective salve still shining over the blackened skin, it’s bleeding in three places. She reaches into the inner pocket of her lightweight cloak and withdraws a clean cloth and a bottle of wound cleanser kept there for this very reason. Gendry hisses softly as she presses it softly to his wound, but he holds still as she tends to him. “What need does the Lord of Storm’s End have of forging, anyway? You’ve got your own blacksmiths now.”

He deflects.

“What need does the Lady of Storm’s End have of sword fighting?”

Arya kicks his leg. “Shut it. I’m not a lady. And even if I were, I’d still best you in sword fighting any day.”

“They think you’re a lady,” he continues. “ _My_ lady. ‘When’s the wedding, Lord Gendry?’ they ask. ‘When will you wed the pretty Lady Stark’— _ow_!”

Gendry yanks his arm from her grip. Arya lowers the bottle of wound cleanser.

“Don’t be a baby,” she scolds. “If you didn’t want it cleaned, you should have listened to me. Give it here. No telling what you got in it in those forges.”

He turns back towards her, but it’s reluctant. Arya tries to be even gentler, but there’s nothing she can do about the sting of the cleanser. It must not be too painful though; he goes right back to teasing her soon enough.

“I tell them all you’re a wolf— beautiful and fierce and nomadic— and they think I’m being romantic, but they haven’t seen how you bite.”

Arya has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep back her smirk.

“Wolves are _semi-_ nomadic,” she corrects. She dabs gently at the topmost part of his burn. “They have nomadic phases and stationary phases.”

“And is this your stationary phase?”

Arya doesn’t respond. Her thoughts stray to Daenerys’s letter and to Jon’s. Her heart strays to King’s Landing.

“There,” she murmurs sometime later. She blows gently on his wound, trying to dry the last of the cleanser. “Let it air out. The air is good for it.”

“Yes, Maester Arya.”

Arya tucks the cleanser back into the inner pocket of her cloak. She feels Gendry’s arm wrap around her moments later, and she smiles. She scoots closer and leans into his side.

“Are you going to tell me what you were doing back in the forges?”

“You’ve caught me. I was trying to get injured again. I love when you play Maester.”

Arya lifts her head and gives him a dry look. It’s sweetened only when he leans his face down and kisses her lips. She crumbles then, like freshly fallen snow before it’s packed and hardened. His kiss is addictive as summer wine and twice as bold.

“I'm making something for Lyaella,” he admits. “A sword. Like Needle, but smaller. I want it to look a certain way, but it's proving to be much harder than I thought it'd be.”

Anything Arya could’ve imagined wouldn’t have come close to that. Her heart doubles in size. She feels warm from crown to toe as she kisses him again.

“She’s reading now,” she finally murmurs. “Daenerys and Jon wrote.”

Gendry smiles. “She’s probably already better at it than I am. She’s a clever one.”

“Yes,” Arya agrees fondly. Her heart pangs with longing. Lately, it’s been incessant to the point that when she sees babies or children, she gets a sudden urge to pick them up and cuddle them-- simply because she's missing her little Lyaella. “She wants to write to me. That’s why she’s been working so hard at it.”

There’s a short pause. Arya whiles it away by holding Gendry around the waist and hiding her face against his strong shoulder.

“You miss them,” he says softly. It’s not a question. It’s blatant and undeniable.

“Yes.” She won’t lie to him. She’s been away from them much longer than she’d planned, simply because it’s been so nice to be here with him— to wake in his arms every day, to laugh with him, to share her nights with him. But it’s getting harder with each day. It’s hard to know she’s missing things back home. And that’s what King’s Landing is, even now: home. She may feel at ease here, and she may be comfortable and happy, but home is still where her family is. And even if Gendry is part of that family, the Targaryens still are, too. She doesn't think anything will ever change that. “I wish we could all be together.”

“We _are_ ,” he tells her. He pulls her closer, dragging her into his embrace. “We’re not that far. Go visit.”

It’s more complicated than that, though. She hasn’t let herself visit once in the months that have passed because she’s afraid that, once she’s there again, she won’t be able to leave. How could she hold Lyaella in her arms only to set her down and leave her again a week or so later? Leaving her the first time was hard enough. She sobbed for Arya the entire walk to the pier. Sometimes, right before Arya falls asleep, she still hears her little niece crying for her. She still sees her tear-streaked face shining beneath the sun, her arms stretched out desperately.

 _It’s complicated,_ she told Gendry on those nights, when her tears were impossible to fight away. _She’s my niece, yes, but I love her as if she were my own. I was there when she was born. I cut her cord myself…I carried her from that burning ship. I’ve been with her through everything. I love her with all my heart, and the thought of her being there without my protection…it’s difficult._

Gendry was never anything but understanding, but sometimes, Arya thought it hurt him. Like perhaps he felt he wasn’t enough for her. What he didn’t understand was that nothing was enough for Arya: she wanted everything, home and distant lands, comfort and adventure. Her family and her love— her love and her family. Sometimes…though she would never admit it for fear of how it would be taken…those roles felt interchangeable.

“It’ll be difficult to leave again,” Arya says. It’s as honest as she can be.

“I’ll go with you. We’ll stay as long as you need. Things will be fine here…we’ll make arrangements. I miss them, too. Especially Lyaella.”

Arya shakes her head. “I’d have to turn back to King's Landing almost as soon as we left it. I have to be there when Aemon is born. I _have to_.” _And he_ _'ll be here soon,_ Arya thinks, but she doesn't say it aloud because she's afraid of how tremulous her tone might sound if she does. Being so far removed from the pregnancy has made it all feel slow and abstract; Arya still thinks of Daenerys as she'd been when she left, tiny but for a gentle swell, and because of that, she can't convince her mind that the baby is coming soon. It doesn't matter how many times she reminds herself: it's as if the progression of time has halted in her memory. Until she sees her sister again, it won't be real. 

And once she does see her again, and it _is_ real, she doubts she'll be able to wrench herself way. 

“That’s not a problem, Arya. We could stay until he’s born, if you wish.”

It’s calm, genuine. Arya knows he means that. It’s a lot that he’s offering, even if he pretends that it’s not. Being Lord of Storm’s End is no easy job, and being absent for that long would certainly be a chore. But he would do it for Arya. Of that, she is certain.

Could she ask it of him, though? Should she?

“Daenerys thinks she has three or so moons left. I can’t ask that of you.”

Gendry’s calloused hand strokes her hip. “You didn’t ask. I offered. Anyway, aren’t Tormund and Yara arriving soon? It’d be nice to see them, too.”

Arya had forgotten.

“Yes, I think they are. That's what Jon wrote in his last letter, anyway.”

He hugs her tighter. “So we’ll go. We’re overdue for a visit if you ask me. That’s the problem: you feel it’s here or there, there or here. But it’s not. We could be visiting every other week. That’s possible, Arya.”

He’s said it before, but she feels as skeptical about it now as she had then. She feels like it’s all or nothing. Either she’s here with Gendry or she’s there with the Targaryens. She can’t merge both worlds in her head. She can’t imagine a world for herself where she has both— where she’s fully and totally complete. Or perhaps she’s just afraid to imagine it. Perhaps she still hasn’t decided whether she’s worthy of it.

But that is what she needs to be happy. She’s sure of it.

“Let’s make the arrangements. Okay?” he coaxes. “Let’s go to King’s Landing. I know you’re worried it’ll be difficult to leave…but you don’t _have_ to do anything, Arya. If we get there, and you decide you’d rather stay, I’ll understand. I’ll be in King’s Landing to visit you all the time…but I’ll understand. I just want you to be happy.”

He means it as truthfully as her Targaryens do. It touches her heart just the same. She feels blessed then, lucky to have found a family once more. To be loved and protected despite all she’s lost. If only both halves of that family were in the same place.

“We can start making arrangements, but let’s not tell them we’re coming in case something happens and we don’t make it. I wouldn’t want to get Lyaella’s hopes up,” Arya decides.

“We’ll surprise them,” Gendry smiles. “It’ll be great. You’ll see.”

She hopes so. She doesn’t know what frightens her more: the thought that she might not be able to tear herself away again once she returns, or that something will have changed while she’s been absent. What if it doesn’t feel like home as it once had?

She forces that thought away. It's too frightening. 

“In order to do that, you’ll have to keep yourself from dying of infection. So _stay out of the forges.”_

Gendry kisses her again. “Yes, m’lady.”

She allows it. In many ways, she is his lady. But she’d never admit to it aloud. His lady, the absent Commander of the Royalguard, a wolf, a warrior, the king’s sister, the queen’s sister, the princess’s aunt…sometimes she feels choked with titles. Which one is she truly, deep down? The only thing she’s sure of is that she’s Arya, and Arya is all those things. The only thing she’s sure of is that she is someone. No One is gone, never to return.

His arm curves around her waist, his fingers laying at the edge of her hipbone. She looks up at him, _I’m afraid_ perched just at the edge of her lips, but the blue of his eyes freezes those words in place.

He reads her conflict, but he misinterprets it.

“I’m all right with semi-nomadic,” he whispers. He kisses her lips, his fingers moving to hold her chin in place. “I know _you_ , Arya. I love you for who _you_ are. All of it.”

 _You won’t be fine with semi-nomadic forever,_ she thinks, her heart stuttering in her chest. _One day, the moon tea won’t work, and you’ll want me here. And I can’t be caged. I’m afraid of that._

“One day you’ll want me to be a proper lady.” It’s one of her deepest fears.

Gendry scrunches his nose up in disgust. “What would I want that for? If I wanted a proper lady, I’d take the hand of any one of the simpering maidens that stare at me during feasts.”

Arya scowls. He bumps his nose against hers before kissing her again.

“I _don’t_ ,” he reminds her. “I want _you_.” 

There’s another truth perched at the tip of her tongue, but this one does not freeze.

“And I want you,” she admits. She sets her hand at the center of his broad chest. Her heart swells and grows within her. “I love you.”

He pulls back and looks down at her face, his softening with a joyful smile. He nudges her chin up gently so that he may look down at her face. Arya feels herself grow small and large all at once as he strokes her cheeks gently with calloused fingers. He makes her feel beautiful and lovely at the same time she feels fierce and wild— _how does he do it?_ She wonders it all the time. _How does he make me believe I’m beautiful in the way I’ve always wanted to be? The way my aunt was— strong and willful. Beautiful and brave._

“I love you, too,” he murmurs. It’s not the first time he’s said it, but it makes her heart inhale the same way it did that first time all the same. It holds it. And holds it. And holds it… _what am I waiting for? What am I afraid of? Loss?_ “Always.”

“We couldn’t be a family if we were apart,” she says. Her uncertainty weaves through each word. “Families shouldn’t be apart. Bad things happen when they are. Terrible things.”

_When children are separated from their fathers, horrid things happen. When mothers go away, terror seizes. When wives leave husbands, it all unravels. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it._

“We don’t have to be apart. I’ll roam with you. I’ll be a wolf, too.”

It’s joking— he moves his face to the side and bites teasingly at her earlobe, something that might’ve drawn a smile from her any other time or at least made her playfully shove him. But if only he understood what he was really saying.

Her voice is flat. “You’re a stag. Yours is the fury.”

“ _Ours_ is the fury,” he corrects. He kisses her cheek. “And I’m a smith. What the world sees us as doesn’t matter. We make our own rules and we build our own life. I don’t care if half that life is in King’s Landing— so long as it’s with you.”

She has to squeeze her eyes shut to ask her next question. “And if we one day have a son or a daughter? You’d want me traipsing back and forth?”

“I’d want us _all_ traipsing back and forth together. Our child should know his cousins, shouldn’t he? His family.” He strokes Arya’s hair, tucking it behind her ears. “Or she,” he corrects thoughtfully.

She opens her eyes and looks at him. She feels her heart exhale.

“Truly?”

He’s serious. “Truly.”

She says nothing else about it, but it reassures her. She doesn’t know what her future will look like, yet it helps to know that— no matter the path she takes— she might be able to have both Gendry and the Targaryens at her side. Even Bran and Sansa sometimes, too. She feels she’s constantly battling against the idea she’s got in her head of what is expected of her; she feels the need to rebel against all of it in full, for fear of getting boxed into a future she doesn’t want the moment she stops fighting. It’s strange to realize that the only one doing the boxing now is herself. 

“I suppose it _is_ past time for a visit,” she finally says.

He knocks his shoulder into hers. “Without a doubt. I’m sure they’re missing you terribly.”

_Not as much as I miss them._

II.

Sansa’s mind is teeming with numbers.

“Yes, I suppose that would work,” she muses. She leans closer to Tyrion’s side and peers at the paper set between them. She studies his handwriting carefully. “If we…” she stops, her eyes snagging the number she’d been about to say. She taps it with her finger. “Yes, that’s what I was going to say. We should be fine adjusting the quarterly allocations this way. The levee funds can be switched for the glass garden funds in Winterfell; storm season is arriving soon so it’s more pressing to get the levees repaired in Storm’s End. Winterfell can wait.”

She’s so busy readjusting the figures in her head and planning how she’ll word the budget proposal that she doesn’t notice Tyrion’s silence. She doesn’t feel his gaze weighing on her. And she certainly can’t tell anything has changed.

“Sansa.”

She lifts her eyes from the paper and looks down at him. In the space of an exhale, he’s risen in his seat, and she feels breath against her face, followed a second later by soft pressure against her lips. _It’s_ his _lips,_ she realizes, frozen in place. She doesn’t breathe. She doesn’t move. She can feel heat flooding her cheeks, and a heaviness in her racing heart that she recognizes at once as embarrassment— discomfort.

He doesn’t linger against her stone-still mouth. He backs away quickly, and the host of emotions that travel over his face— uncertainty, fear, embarrassment— are more painful than anything else. _No,_ she thinks, and she feels tenderness at her heart, _it’s not you. It’s not you. It’s me. It’s always going to be me. I didn’t feel anything. Why didn’t I feel anything? I never feel anything._

She wonders whose heart is writhing beneath heavier shame: hers or his. It must be his. He pulls away from her, and she sees distance in his eyes. It makes her eyes burn.

“No,” she says, reaching out. He’s only just backed away, but she feels alone already. “No, I—”

The sound of the heavy study door creaking open clamps her lips shut. She and Tyrion both twist in their seat and turn to look towards it, their faces aflame. The little princess is first to push in. She’s delicate in periwinkle silks, her silver curls bouncing loose at her shoulders. The book she’s clutching to her chest is nearly the size of her torso.

“TYION! _TYION!”_ She surges forward so excitedly that she accidentally steps on the hem of her silks; she tilts forward, but Ghost darts silently in front of her and stops, giving her something solid to fall against. She steadies herself impatiently and then readjusts her hold on the text in her arms. As she hurries over to Tyrion, the queen steps in after her, Jon at her side and her hand resting naturally atop her round belly. They’re whispering to each other, but despite the queen’s involvement in that ongoing conversation, Sansa still sees Daenerys’s eyebrows lift slightly as she takes in Sansa’s expression. Sansa looks away quickly, her face burning hotter.

“Yes, what, what?” Tyrion asks, doing his best to match Lyaella’s endearing enthusiasm. Lyaella heaves the book up onto the tabletop in front of Tyrion and then grabs the seat of his chair. She hoists herself up to sit beside him. “What do you have here?”

Lyaella’s eyes are shining. The color of her dress makes them seem closer to plum than dark grey. She pushes the book towards Tyrion. “My family book!”

Sansa leans forward and studies the title simply to give herself something to do. She doesn’t want to meet Daenerys’s eyes: she’s certain she’ll somehow be able to read what just happened, and she doesn’t want anyone to know.

“ _Dragonkin, Being a History of House Targaryen from Exile to Apotheosis with a Consideration of the Life and Death of Dragons,”_ Tyrion reads off. Despite how flustered and disheartened he is, he perks up. From that, Sansa guesses this is a rare book. “Where did you find this, Princess?”

Lyaella is all smiles. “Sam gaved it to me to read! For me to learn! Look, Tyion!” She opens the book up to a spot she’s marked with a purple ribbon.

“Ah,” Tyrion smiles. He touches the delicate pages. “Good Queen Alysanne. Is she your favorite Targaryen?”

“No, _Muver_ and _Fawder_ are, but I like her _so_ much,” Lyaella gushes. “She had Silverwing. When she was a little baby…when she was— when she was a baby—” Lyaella’s so excited she can’t seem to get her words out fully. Tyrion waits patiently. “Her sister was Rhaena. I like that name so very, very, _very_ much! She gaved Alysanne Silverwing as a little baby egg!”

“Marvelous,” Tyrion effuses. He sets his cheek in his hand as Lyaella continues on, watching her with genuine interest as she tells them quite a colorful retelling of Good Queen Alysanne’s life. Sansa can’t keep from smiling. It softens the brittle shame ensnarled around her heart.

While Lyaella ‘lectures’ Tyrion on things he certainly already knows, Sansa tunes into the quiet conversation happening a few steps behind her. At first, it’s out of paranoia; she’s wondering what Daenerys has picked up on and what Jon thinks of what she might have deduced. What they both think. But after realizing they’re not talking about her, she continues listening out of curiosity.

“Do you feel that?” Daenerys is whispering, and there’s a short pause before Jon responds. His voice is softer than Sansa has ever heard.

“Yes.” She can hear his smile as clearly as if she’d turned around to see it. They’re both quiet for a long moment, and when Sansa glances back towards them, she sees both Jon’s hands cradling Daenerys’s stomach. “Gods, I see what you mean.”

“I don’t know if he’s just more active than Ly was, or if I just notice it more this time because I’m not being tormented, but it feels strong. Don’t you think?”

“He’s just strong,” Jon decides, his voice bursting with pride. Sansa hears the sound of a kiss. It makes her think of the moment she and Tyrion had just shared with another rush of embarrassment. She doesn’t have to be inside Daenerys’s head to know the emotions she’s feeling at the touch of Jon’s lips are very different from the emotions she herself had just felt. “ _You’re_ strong.”

“Yes, well, not being tortured in my dreams each night has done wonders for my health. Being able to eat has done wonders for it, too.”

Sansa can’t decipher what Jon murmurs after that, but it makes the queen laugh. The sound is tinkling and mischievous.

“Let’s revisit that later tonight,” she says lowly. “Right now we should probably rescue Lord Tyrion from Good Queen Lyaella.”

Her intentions are good, but Tyrion doesn’t appear to need rescuing. He’s genuinely amused at Lyaella’s ramblings, that interest probably helped in part by a reluctance to be alone with Sansa again. Because then what? What does she say? What does she do? _I could kiss him,_ she thinks, but it doesn’t feel right. _I’ve done worse before. I could kiss him…I do care about him. He’s my friend. Isn’t he?_

But she’s free now. She doesn’t have to kiss anyone she doesn’t want to kiss. And she doesn’t think Tyrion would want the unwilling press of her lips, anyway.

She’s missed most of the conversation flowing between Tyrion and Lyaella, but it appears they’re still talking about Alysanne Targaryen so she hopes her silence hasn’t been noted. But she has no such luck: as Daenerys leans against the side of her chair and touches her shoulder lightly, she knows that her silence has been noticed, at least by the queen if no one else. Sansa keeps her eyes averted.

“All right, Ly,” Jon finally says. “I think that can complete today’s history lecture. We’re needed in the council chambers.”

Lyaella protests that statement at once. She cries out, disappointed, and then reaches to hug Tyrion’s arm to her as if she fears she’ll be dragged away.

“But I don’t even— I didn’t even talk about the Wall or—or—or— Dagonstone or— she had a baby in her womb like _Muver_ and _free_ ladies with daggers tried to _kill her, Fawder_!”

“And they didn’t succeed,” Jon reassures her patiently. He pulls Lyaella’s blanket from its spot around his neck and drops it into her lap. She hugs it close with her left arm, but she keeps hold of Tyrion with her right.

Tyrion’s interest in the topic _must_ have more to do with Lyaella’s interpretations of her history rather than the history itself, as Sansa knows for a fact that Tyrion knows as much as any maester about Targaryen history. That theory is supported by the curious questions that follow.

“Do you know _why_ she was attacked, Princess Lyaella?” he questions.

Jon gives up, sensing that Tyrion is no more done with this conversation than Lyaella is. Lyaella cautiously lets go of Tyrion’s arm once she realizes she’s not going to be coaxed from the study.

“They say…they thinked her baby was a domination,” Lyaella answers. The way her silver brow furrows in distaste implies she is wounded by those would-be assassin’s past actions.

“An _abomination_ ,” Daenerys corrects gently, a smile pulling at the corners of her lips.

“And do you know why they thought that about her baby?”

This, it seems, it less clear to Lyaella. She pauses for a moment, her teeth worrying her bottom lip, and then she rises onto her knees on the chair and pulls the book back to herself. Sansa imagines there’s no way she can decipher most of the dense text, but it certainly appears that she can: she barely casts her eyes over the illustrations, choosing instead to scan her eyes purposefully over the writing.

“‘Cause…because…Alysanne was having a baby, and…and her _buver_ Jaehaerys put it there, and…” Lyaella stop suddenly, her thoughtful expression turning curious. She looks at Jon. “Daddy, how did you put Aemon in _Muver_?”

Jon’s eyes widen in alarm at that question, but he’s saved from having to respond by Daenerys. She gives a sudden sigh of discomfort and presses a firm hand to her belly. It draws the attention of every person in the study, _especially_ Lyaella. She forgets the book entirely and twists around to face her mother, her face falling.

“Mamma?” she asks worriedly. “Are you okay? Aemon can’t come yet. He’s too tiny.”

“He’s not coming now,” Jon reassures her reflexively. “Don’t worry.” 

“I’m fine, sweetling, I’m just _starving_ ,” the queen says, her discomfort clearly exaggerated. “Lyaella, will you come to the kitchens with me?”

Lyaella hops off the chair without pause, all thoughts of the mystery of baby-making forgotten.

“Yes, Mamma! Sorry, so sorry, Tyion, my baby Aemon needs figs,” she says. She hugs his arm. “I’ll come back.”

He pats her hair fondly. “That’s perfectly all right, Princess Lyaella. Go tend to your mother and the baby.”

That’s the princess’s favorite thing to do lately. You’d think the newest Targaryen was already a conscious being from how she acts; she saves special treats for her mother to eat ‘for Aemon’, she talks, sings, reads, and even clumsily plays the harp for him, and Sansa’s been told she won’t sleep without feeling him kick at least once. Her antics melt the heart of most everyone around her.

Lyaella hops down and heaves the book back into her arms. She and her parents are halfway out of the study when Sansa hears her name.

“Sansa? Would you like to come?”

That question is light, but the questions lurking beneath it are not. Sansa’s certain Daenerys noticed something. She wishes she were less observant.

Sansa hesitates, her eyes drifting over to Tyrion. He rises.

“I’m going to go talk to Davos about these figures,” he says, his eyes downcast. Before Sansa can say a word, he turns and heads out of the study, too, leaving her feeling as confused as she feels guilty.

III.

“Oh, yes, thank you, my dear heart,” Daenerys says, accepting yet another round of fruit from Lyaella’s plate. “That’s more than enough.”

The understatement is comical. Sansa tries to count how many different types of fruit are piled on the queen’s plate, but it’s so packed it’s impossible to tell for certain. Lyaella is indifferent to the excess; she reaches out towards a kitchen server as they pass the table, no doubt determined to implore her for _more_ fruit for _baby Aemon._

“Ignore her,” Jon murmurs lowly to the server. The man looks momentarily hesitant— like ignoring the princess’s requests is as unnatural as breathing water— but Jon nods firmly.

“Please, can we have more, please?” Lyaella asks.

To Lyaella’s right, while she’s not looking, Jon mimes nodding, followed quickly by a firm shake of his head. The server is staring at him uncertainty as he bobs his head alongside the king.

“Yes,” he says. “What…would you like, my lady?”

Lyaella’s list is oddly specific.

“ _Bud orange,_ and a _cinmon_ stick, and ale.”

Sansa glances over at Jon. His eyes have narrowed slightly at the edges. For a second, it appears he might ask Lyaella about her list of items, but he must decide to let it go. The server looks at him again, this time helplessly.

“It’ll be here shortly, Princess Lyaella,” Jon coaches, his voice monotone.

“It’ll…be here shortly, Princess Lyaella,” the server parrots. He hesitates before walking off, shooting Jon one last questioning look. Jon looks pained.

“You’d think I was asking him to cut off his right hand,” he hisses to Sansa. “She may be a princess, but she can’t have her every single whim met…”

Sansa almost says: _that’s hilarious coming from you…you give that child anything she wants._ But she doesn’t.

While Lyaella waits for the food that will never come, she moves to sit with her mother. She sets her hands on Daenerys’s thighs and climbs carefully into her lap. Once there, she twists to face her mother, carefully drapes her baby blanket over her, and then gently sets her little hands upon her mother’s round stomach. Daenerys lifts Lyaella’s left hand up and presses it to her lips.

“Blood oranges, cinnamon sticks, and ale?” Daenerys questions, her right brow arched. She pokes Lyaella’s tummy; Lyaella giggles and retaliates by leaning over and loudly kissing Daenerys’s. “I never took you for an ale girl. A fine wine, perhaps.”

“ _Aemon_ likes ale! And _bud_ oranges! So much,” she tells Daenerys. “We eat them every, every night.”

It still unsettles Sansa when Lyaella talks of Aemon like that— like she’s already met him, like she knows him. She’s still not convinced the things Lyaella sees in her dreams are anything more than routine childhood imaginings, but her parents accept it readily enough. And Sansa’s got to admit she’s oddly detailed if it’s nothing more than nonsense.

“You with your figs and fine wine and him with his blood oranges and ale. You’re quite a pair,” Daenerys teases. She taps Lyaella’s nose with a slice of apple, and Lyaella tumbles into sparkling giggles. She pulls the apple from her mother’s fingers and leans in with it. She’s sweetly determined as she presses it to Daenerys’s lips.

“Eat, _Muver,”_ she implores.

“Oh, I couldn’t eat another bite,” Daenerys says. She gently pulls the apple from Lyaella and sets it on her overpacked plate. “Aemon’s full, too. Feel how still he is for once? He’s probably napping.”

Lyaella leans in eagerly and presses her ear against the peak of Daenerys’s stomach. Her hands move to the underside of her belly, and she waits, listening and feeling.

“He’s quiet as a baby mouse!” Lyaella finally whispers. She turns her face so her lips are pressed to Daenerys’s stomach. Her whispered words are soft as a tip-toed step across creaking floorboards. “But you’re not a baby mouse, you’re a baby _dagon_. A _seepy_ one. My best, best, best _fend._ ”

While Lyaella’s otherwise preoccupied with cooing at her unborn brother, Daenerys reaches casually towards her plate and swipes half the contents onto the floor. Ghost stares at the fruit as it lands in front of his face; at first, Sansa thinks he’s going to ignore it, but then he gives a short huff and begins dutifully consuming it.

“Good boy,” Daenerys murmurs. A few moments later, when Lyaella begins pestering her to eat again, she points emphatically at her near-empty plate. “I’ve got no room for any more after eating all _that!”_

Lyaella’s brow furrows at first, and Sansa thinks she’s going to challenge her mother, but she doesn’t. She smiles instead.

“That’s good, Mamma,” she praises. She cuddles up against her, leaning so gently against her stomach that Sansa can tell she’s hyperaware of every ounce of weight she’s pressing against her mother. “I’m a happy girl ‘cause you don’t get sick all the time no more.”

“Me too,” Daenerys agrees. “I’m a happy girl, too.” She kisses the corner of Lyaella’s mouth gently and then nudges her side. “Go sit with Father for a bit. He looks terribly lonely.”

Jon— stooped over and scratching contentedly at Ghost’s ears— looks up at that. He doesn’t contradict her, though. He merely straightens and opens his arms for his daughter. As soon as Lyaella’s sitting in his lap and chatting happily, Daenerys turns to face Sansa.

“Do you want to talk?”

Sansa looks down at her fingernails. She has to work hard to keep her posture straight: she wants to fold into herself. The sweet distraction of Lyaella is fading, allowing those guilty, confused feelings to flood her chest once more. She pushes at her cuticles, refusing to meet the queen’s eyes.

“About what?”

“About whatever happened before we came into the study. You were both quite flustered.”

She thinks, if she tried hard enough— lied calmly enough— manipulated fiercely enough— that she could get the queen to believe she was mistaken. She could convince her that she’d imagined their flustered states, that they’d been talking of nothing but numbers, that everything was fine.

But when she opens her mouth to do so, it’s not lies that tumble out.

“He kissed me. Just before you walked in.”

She expects slight surprise, perhaps the wrinkle of her nose. Maybe a few questions; Arya teases Sansa enough about all the time she spends with Tyrion that she’s certain the queen probably assumes something is going on, too. Instead, Daenerys’s expression turns to stone. The queen hardly responds at all. But her eyes have hardened, and her lips have tightened. Those two features are the only things that give her anger away. Until she speaks, that is.

“It was unacceptable and inappropriate for him to do that,” she finally says. Her hand falls from her stomach. She straightens as if she intends to rise. “Do you want me to go talk to him?”

Daenerys _wants_ to go talk to him— that much is clear. She looks liable to give him the tongue lashing of the century. But Sansa doesn’t share her outrage, and because of that, she doesn’t _want_ him to get scolded. She hadn’t felt threatened by him or betrayed. She just felt sad and confused.

“It wasn’t like that at all…he didn’t force himself on me, he just…I think he thought…” Sansa trails off, struggling to explain the odd encounter. She didn’t feel good about it, but it wasn’t necessarily because of what Tyrion had done. It was because of the way she had felt— or, rather, hadn’t felt.

“No matter what he thought, he should’ve clarified with you first,” the queen says firmly. She extends her hand and sets it on Sansa’s shoulder. “Would you like me to speak with him?”

“No,” Sansa answers. She’s certain of that. “I want to talk to him.”

 _He’s important to me_ , she wants to say. _I don’t want things to be strained. He’s the closest friend I’ve got. And that closeness is confusing…everything is confusing._

She could think her way out of nearly any complicated labyrinth of numbers or political conundrums…but in this— matters of the heart— she feels lost. And the one she wants to talk to about it is the one she risks hurting with her confusion.

“All right,” Daenerys relents hesitantly. “But if he makes you feel uncomfortable—”

“I’m nearly always uncomfortable,” Sansa interrupts, her voice sharp. She rises, and as she does, her recurrent nighttime back pain spasms across her lower back, as if emphasizing her statement. She’s risen so abruptly that even the little princess can tell something isn’t right; Sansa feels her eyes weighing on the profile of her face. “I’ve got work I need to do.”

Daenerys reaches out, but Sansa turns her back to her and heads towards the door. It takes Queen Daenerys longer than it normally would to get out of her seat, and Sansa is glad for it. By the time she’s heaved herself up and turned Sansa’s way, Sansa’s already ducking out of the doorway.

“Come to the feast tonight!” Daenerys calls after her. The sound of her footsteps echoes through the corridor, but Sansa merely speeds up. She hears her sigh; the corridor grows quiet as she comes to a stop. “Tormund will be there by then, and likely Yara, too— I’m saving you a seat. Don’t let this ruin your night.”

At that, Sansa stops walking. She turns and starts to say ‘is that an order, Your Grace?’, but she purses her lips together and stops the words before they come. None of this is Daenerys’s fault. She hasn’t done anything to deserve Sansa’s coldness. Lashing out would be easy, and it would feel good for a moment— but she doesn’t want to hurt her. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone. That’s the problem.

She and Daenerys observe each other from opposite ends of the corridor. Sansa doesn’t know what to say. No matter how worried Daenerys may be— and she appears it then, standing there slightly winded from her pursuit, her silver brow furrowed and her hands cradling her belly as if she half-expects she’ll have to take off running after Sansa— she can’t do anything to help. Better to let her go on with her afternoon in peace.

“Thank you for checking on me, Daenerys,” Sansa finally says. “You should go back before Jon worries.”

She feels the queen’s eyes weighing on her until she turns the corner.

IV.

She plans when and how to talk to Tyrion. And of course those careful plans end up being pointless.

She runs into him in the kitchens, and she can’t help but wonder if some part of her had expected that she would. It’s certainly not an unusual place for him, after all.

He’s nursing a goblet of wine alongside Red Fly. Sansa slows, but she doesn’t retreat. He regards her warily.

“Well,” Red Fly says. He stands from his stool and claps Tyrion on the shoulder. “I’ve got less awkward places to be.”

He says something else in Valyrian— Sansa catches Daenerys’s name and a word she thinks is the word for _god—_ and Tyrion scowls. Red Fly cackles in response and starts to walk off, but he reverses at the last minute. Tyrion’s scowl turns to a glower as he swipes Tyrion’s goblet from his hand.

“I’ll take this,” Red Fly says. “Conversations are best had sober.” He inclines his head at Sansa. “Lady Sansa.”

Sansa inclines her head his way as well, but she’s not in the mood to talk. She likes Red Fly well enough, but he rarely takes anything seriously, and that grates her nerves on the best of days. She certainly can’t handle it today.

She could easily turn and flee the kitchens, too, but she knows any further avoidance will only deepen the chasm between her and Tyrion. She steels herself and then walks over to take the seat Red Fly vacated. She smoothes her skirts over her thighs and avoids his eyes. He says nothing— she says nothing. Finally, after the awkwardness becomes too heavy to breathe beneath, Sansa reaches out for the wine decanter, only to slam her knuckles against Tyrion’s as he reaches for the same thing at the same moment.

He withdraws his hand as if she’s burned him. Sansa frowns. There’s another long pause, and then he makes a sound close to a snort of laughter. It’s punctuated by a sigh.

“Would you care for some wine, Sansa?” he finally asks.

She’s relieved he’s spoken. It doesn’t even matter what it is that he’s said.

“Yes,” she answers. “Some conversations are _not_ best had sober.”

“As usual, I’m in agreement.”

She sips at the wine slowly, and by her fourth sip, she’s beginning to feel less worried. _I haven’t done anything wrong,_ she reminds herself. _This isn’t a problem that can’t be fixed. This isn’t even really a problem at all. I’m overreacting._

By the sixth, she feels ready to talk. She lifts her eyes to seek Tyrion’s, ready to let the words fly freely from her lips, but he beats her to it.

“They really ought to discuss what parts of their family traditions they want carried on and what parts they don’t,” Tyrion muses.

Maybe it’s because of the wine, but Sansa’s lost. She struggles to understand who ‘they’ are and what ‘family traditions’ he’s speaking of. Her eyes feel heavy, and her heart thuds slow and low.

“What?” she finally demands.

Tyrion swirls his goblet. He watches the crimson contents whirl.

“Our queen and king. Princess Lyaella. I take great pride in her fondness of reading— I worked with her nearly as often as her tutor did— and I think everyone should know their history front to back, but her parents should be clear about whose footsteps they expect her to follow in. She’s quite fond of Queen Alysanne.”

Sansa still doesn’t understand. It annoys her. She’s confused about him kissing her and her lack of feelings in combination with the feelings she does have…and he’s talking about a dead Targaryen queen?

“What’s wrong with Queen Alysanne?”

“Depends on who you ask. But one can’t forget that she and her brother ran off to Dragonstone to marry one another against their parents’ and their advisors’ wishes.”

Sansa holds her goblet out. Tyrion wordlessly replaces the amount she’s drunk.

“They nearly all did that. Married their siblings. The Targaryens, I mean.”

“My point exactly. The princess is going to get confused if her parents aren’t clear with her. They can’t just let her read all this about their lineage and not clarify that Targaryens don’t marry their siblings anymore.”

The wine has loosened her tongue more than expected. “No. They marry their nephews.”

“Sansa.”

“What? I’m not saying I wish they weren’t married. But it’s a fact. One Lyaella is aware of.”

“All the more reason why they need to set clear moral parameters with her.”

“Forgive me, but I don’t think anyone is going to take you as the authority on ‘clear moral parameters’,” Sansa points out. Tyrion lifts his eyebrows thoughtfully, conceding to the point. Sansa continues on, her tone growing sharper. “She’s a little girl. She’s not thinking about marrying anybody. She just loves her little brother. Don’t twist that into something impure.”

“I’m _not_ ,” Tyrion says seriously. When his eyes catch hers, Sansa gets the strange feeling they’re having two different conversations simultaneously. That feeling passes with another sip of wine.

“You are, though. You’re saying they need to tell her now that it’s not acceptable for her to have relations with family members as if she’ll definitely grow up to want that if they don’t. People don’t naturally desire to marry their little brothers. I would know. I had two.”

“He won’t be little forever.”

Sansa thinks of Bran. “Yes, he will. In some ways, to her, he always will.”

“Plenty of elder sisters married their brothers. Visenya with Aegon, for one.”

Sansa’s annoyance is growing. “Lyaella isn’t stupid, and Jon would never want that, and Daenerys wouldn’t, either. She doesn’t need them to teach her that brothers and sisters are off limits. They’re just naturally off limits.”

“In my experience, not everyone instinctively just _knows_ that,” Tyrion says dryly.

Sansa thinks of Cersei and Ser Jaime, and she grimaces.

“Your sister and brother would’ve done that no matter what anybody said. And if you value your facial bone integrity, don’t bring this up with Jon. He’ll probably see red and hit you.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dare,” Tyrion assures her. “I was thinking _you_ could talk with him. He wouldn’t hit you.”

Sansa scowls at him. “I’m not giving Jon a parenting critique. He’s a great father. He doesn’t need it. And I didn’t come down to the kitchens to debate Targaryen incest.”

“Why did you, then?”

“Perhaps I’ve picked up some bad habits from someone close to me,” Sansa snaps.

She realizes then that she’s angry with him. She’s not even sure what for. She nurses her wine and waits for him to snap back so she can scream at him. But he doesn’t.

“I’m sorry,” he says instead. He forces his eyes up. He looks straight at her. “I misread our relationship. I have an unfortunate talent for that. I thought you cared for me.”

The words slip out. “I _do_ care for you.”

“No, I know. I know you do. I thought you cared for me as a woman cares for a man. It was my mistake.”

His look of self-loathing makes her anger swell and crest.

“Stop that,” she snaps. “I don’t feel sorry for you so you shouldn’t, either. You’re better than most men. I trust no one so much as you.”

“Yet I am me.”

“And what of it?” She glowers at him. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

He laughs loudly at that.

“Says the woman who recoils from me like I’m some monster—”

“If that’s how you read my reaction, you don’t know me as well as I thought you did.” Her pulse is pounding so hard she can feel its tempo in her face. She should’ve known better than to drink; when she’s relaxed and happy, alcohol gives her the giggles. When she’s upset and worried, it spins those negative emotions into a tight ball of rage. “When I was young, I did think of you as something of a monster at the start. But that’s not what I see anymore. You’ve been handsome to me for years now.”

It’s no lie. She is fond of him— she is always happy to see him, and she always feels warmth in her chest at the sight of his smile. But that is all the warmth she feels.

“If that were true…” he doesn’t finish that thought.

“No,” Sansa says firmly. She can’t stand the thought of her own inability to feel that way for someone being his justifications for his own miserable self-loathing. “That’s not true. It has nothing to do with how you look or don’t look. It doesn’t.” She feels driven to prove it. She leans forward in her chair, her tone growing earnest. “When Prince Quentyn was here for Lyaella’s second name day…when we all got so drunk at the feast…”

“Oh, I remember,” Tyrion assures her.

Sansa forces herself not to avert her gaze. ”He kissed me that night. In the courtyard.”

Tyrion’s tone is bitter. “Now _that_ is a handsome lord. Prince Quentyn.”

Sansa has eyes. She knows that. And she knew it that hazy night, too. She felt his mouth against hers—felt the moonlit breeze fluttering through their hair— and she waited to feel the way she always imagined she would with a beautiful young man’s lips against hers. She waited. And waited. And waited.

“He is. And do you know what I felt when he kissed me?” Tyrion says nothing. She continues on. “Nothing.”

He stares at her for a beat. He can’t seem to make sense of what she’s said. It’s a fair reaction, really: she can’t make sense of it, either. She’s never spoken of that night to anyone before. Not Arya, not Daenerys, not even a handmaiden. _What will they think of me if I tell them that?_ She wonders. _They’ll think I’m broken. Maybe I am. Perhaps Ramsay took my chance of ever being able to feel that way for anyone._

If her anger is a tight ball within her chest, that thought is as good as an explosion. Her rage crumbles instantly, resting heavily in the pit of her stomach in the form of despair. Her eyes sear. She thinks of voicing that horrible thought to Tyrion, but it gives her an unsettling feeling of repetition as if she’s lived through this moment once before. And, in some ways, she has: she remembers a similar conversation she shared with the queen. _I’ll never marry again,_ she’d said. And Daenerys had comforted her. _You can. Who is going to stop you?_ she’d asked.

 _Me. Me. Me._ The answer plays in Sansa’s head now as it had then, but the reasons are different. She had thought, in that moment, that it was her fear of letting go of the past that would hold her back. But she’s been releasing the past a bit more every day. Now, she realizes, it’s her own lack of want holding her back. _What I would give to want someone. What I would give to feel the way I ought to._

She hasn’t said any of that aloud— but Tyrion’s eyes soften as if she has anyway.

“Oh,” he finally says. He sits back in his chair, his expression thoughtful. They’re both quiet for a painful amount of time. Finally, he says, “Well, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Sansa nearly laughs. Right then, to her, there’s nothing _more_ wrong than that.

“There is. Anyone would be lucky to kiss Prince Quentyn. Tyrion, anyone would be lucky to kiss you, too.”

He smiles. It’s a relief even if nothing has really been solved.

“While I’m _incredibly_ touched that you’re placing me on a level even _close_ to Quentyn’s, you’re not being fair to yourself. We all feel what we feel. Nothing’s worth having if you don’t want it.”

“And if I never do?”

“Then you never do. What would be so wrong about that?”

It goes against everything she ever believed growing up. She was continually told that she would one day marry a handsome lord and have his children; she had never imagined she’d do anything else (or be anybody else.) That was what she’d defined a future as, what she’d expected. She’d never had a picture of any life but that.

For a brief moment, she thinks she understands what Tyrion had been trying to say earlier about Lyaella’s interpretations of her family’s past and her picture of the future. But the thought slips away, overrun by other, more pressing realizations, such as: _it feels good to finally talk about this._ Yet she still feels regret.

“I wish—”

He interrupts her. “No,” he says firmly. “I don’t. You should have what you want. I’ve always had a weakness for beautiful, unattainable women— I’m well-practiced in dealing with it. I loved our queen for a long while, after all.”

Sansa feels a genuine thrill of surprise. Her eyes must widen. Tyrion laughs.

“I’ve never mentioned that,” he realizes.

“No. I wouldn’t have forgotten it if you had.” Her lips twitch. “Daenerys? Why?”

Tyrion gives her a deadpanned look. “You’re truly asking me that?”

“You misunderstand,” Sansa says, smiling now. She feels the urge to laugh, but she suppresses it. “No one is refuting Queen Daenerys’s beauty. I’m simply doubting your intelligence or perhaps your grip on reality…have you seen the way she looks at Jon?”

“You forget she didn’t always know Jon.”

It’s a fair point, though she struggles to imagine the two apart. She can’t remember Jon being happy without Daenerys, and she has a difficult time imagining Daenerys happy without Jon.

“Though before Jon, it was Daario,” Tyrion sighs. “Perhaps I just like pain.”

“ _I_ don’t,” Sansa mutters. “That’s the only thing I’m sure of.”

Tyrion leans forward and knocks his goblet gently against hers. “May you never have another moment of it.”

Sansa’s smile grows. “May you never again fall for a Targaryen queen.”

“You know, I think our prospects for both those wishes are fairly good. See— there’s always a silver lining.”

They sit there together, talking and sipping at wine, and by the time Sansa returns to her room, she can’t imagine how she ever feared they wouldn’t be able to discuss this. They understand each other completely. And she knows, without a doubt, that even if every other person thinks her broken, he won’t. Just as she knows she will never see him that way, either.

V.

Jon braces himself for Tormund’s spine-cracking embrace as he bounds towards them, but it never comes.

Instead, his little daughter steps in front of him, grabs Tormund’s hand, and loudly proclaims: “ _Tormud_! Look! Look! My baby Aemon! He's in my _muver's_ womb! Wombs are under your belly!”

Tormund falls into a round of deep guffaws. “Not under _my_ belly!”

Lyaella giggles along with him. “No, not yours! Lady-bellies!”

“Lovely lady-bellies…speaking of them…”

“Oh no,” Daenerys murmurs, and Jon grins. Seconds later, Tormund’s got his arm around her shoulders, his grip tight yet mindful of her expanded middle. Jon barely has time to exchange a look with his wife before Tormund yanks him in, too. _He_ is given no mercy: the air is crushed from his lungs completely. He gasps weakly.

“Look at _her!”_ Tormund spins Daenerys out and holds her at arm’s length to appraise her, indifferent to Jon’s choking. He tightens his arm around Jon’s chest emphatically. “Look at _that!_ ” He uses his free arm to gesture at her round belly. Jon tenses for a moment, his eyes watching Tormund’s hand warily in case he tries to press it to Dany’s stomach, but he makes no attempt to touch it. He gestures at her again. “ _Look_!”

Jon’s voice is strained due to his lack of air. “Yes, I see!”

Lately, she’s _all_ he sees. He’s well-aware of how radiant and soft his wife is. He doesn’t need Tormund’s help seeing it.

“Is it _yours_?” Tormund demands. His feigned doubt amuses only himself.

“Of course it is. Let him go: his face is turning red,” Daenerys orders. Tormund doesn’t seem to process her order; he’s still chuckling at his own words. “Tormund!”

Tormund releases him. It’s a good thing, too: his chest was beginning to feel tight and his patience was wearing thin. His next move would’ve likely been to elbow Tormund in the chest.

Tormund gives him little time to recover. He slaps him hard on the shoulder.

“You still remembered where to stick it, then! Did you even know it was in there, Daenerys?”

Jon _does_ elbow him this time. He’s readying himself to snap at Tormund and tell him not to speak to his wife that way, but Daenerys doesn’t need his defense: she matches Tormund quip for quip.

“Mmm, I did. And so did everybody else in the wing: I wasn’t quiet.” 

Tormund laughs louder, delighted. From the fond way Tormund is looking at Dany, Jon half expects him to swoop her up and cradle her in his arms.

“Fiery little thing…you’re sure you won’t take a second husband?”

“Let me check with Jon and get back to you.”

Tormund hooks his arm around Jon’s neck, dragging him back into his embrace. Jon catches Lyaella’s eye: she's watching the exchange with a look that conveys a familiar emotion. Jon is certain he’s wearing the same intermingled look of annoyance and amusement on his face that she is. 

“Jon’s fucking mad about the idea. But I get him first each night.”

“Oh, no, no deal, then,” Daenerys scowls. “He’s mine.”

Jon feels her soft hand wrap around his, and after only one short tug, Tormund relinquishes his hold so that Jon tumbles over in her embrace. Hers is _much_ more preferable; Jon pulls his wife to his heart and holds her. He kisses her hair and smoothes his hand down her swollen stomach as Lyaella begins asking Tormund a thousand questions about the Free Folk, north of the Wall, stories Jon has told her— anything and everything she can think of, which appears to be a lot. Tormund answers the first ten, and then he laughs.

“You’re made up of questions, Ly-ly. What are you interrogating me for? Don’t you run around and play like normal little girls?”

“I can play with my _fends_ when I want,” Lyaella tells him firmly. Despite her momentarily testy tone, she reaches for Tormund’s hand and holds it sweetly. He smiles down at her in response. “Can you teach me the Old Tongue, _Tormud?_ ”

“I’ll have you fluent by supper, Little Snow. Say…” Tormund says something in the Old Tongue. Knowing Tormund, it’s certainly some profanity that would sound hilarious to him coming from Lyaella’s innocent tongue.

“Don’t say that,” Daenerys and Jon chorus.

“You speak the Old Tongue, my Dragon Queen?” Tormund questions, grinning.

“Not at all. But I’m certain the phrases you’d teach Lyaella would do her no good in diplomatic discussion.”

“Free Folk aren’t fond of diplomatic discussion, but I can teach her how to say ‘listen to your queen, kneelers,’” he suggests.

“Blind, unquestioning obedience isn’t exactly Princess Lyaella’s style. But thank you,” Daenerys responds airily. She twists in Jon’s embrace and looks eastward towards the docks. “I think Yara is arriving.”

Tormund beams. “Now we’re on the path for a decent evening! Let’s go greet her! But first, I need ale for the walk…” he looks around them. When he finally spots a kitchen boy, he draws him to a stop. “Ale. You got ale?”

“Yes, m’lord,” the boy— Parlan, Jon remembers— says. He sets his cleaning rag down and approaches the rest of them. He bows lowly. “Anything for Your Graces?”

Jon doesn’t want anything, but he’d like Daenerys to have something. It’s a far walk: water, at the very least, wouldn’t be a bad idea.

“No, thank you, Parlan,” Daenerys answers.

“I’ll take water,” Jon requests. 

Parlan bows lowly and walks off. He’s back in what seems like an impossible amount of time with both Tormund’s ale and a sealed flask of water. Jon tucks it into his cloak before they set off. As they walk, Lyaella finds another question for Tormund.

“Why am I ‘Little Snow’? You say ‘Little Snow’. Because my hair?” Lyaella lets go of Tormund’s hand and touches the curling end of her braid. “It’s _siver._ Not white. When I’m old, it’s white, but I’m not old. _Muver_ ’s not, too.”

Jon’s confused by that question for a brief moment, and then he realizes that Lyaella doesn’t know him as a _Snow_ at all. She never has and never will. To her, he is a Targaryen and a Stark; he’s never found reason to tell her of his youth spent as a bastard. And he doesn’t want to, either.

“No, definitely not old. Your mother’s a bloody gorgeous image of fertility,” Tormund agrees. Were it any other man who made that comment, Jon’s certain his chest would’ve tightened with rage. He’s quick to anger at their leers; his possessiveness has bypassed what he can control. Even now, he finds himself taking careful stock of every look sent Dany’s way. _But it’s Tormund,_ he reminds himself. Despite how wild Tormund is, he’s loyal to that same measure.

“And I know _you’re_ not old, too: you’re a little baby,” Tormund continues.

 _Here we go,_ Jon thinks. He internally sighs.

“I’m _not_ a baby,” Lyaella says at once. “I’m a big _siser._ ”

“You are, without a single doubt, a baby. I could carry you through the Frostfangs with one finger while blind-drunk and sick with Spring Fever.”

“You _couldn’t_ ,” Lyaella scoffs. “The dying-sick is very bad. But it’s gone now. And if you are— if you are blind, you fall all over the mountain!”

“No,” Tormund argues. “One finger. That’s how little and tiny you are. A wisp of a baby girl. You weaned too early, that’s the problem. You should’ve stayed on longer and you’d be big and strong.”

His attempts to nettle Lyaella are working well. She’s very sensitive lately about being told she’s ‘little’; Jon thinks it has to do with her new identity as an elder sister. She has leaned into anything and everything that might make her more independent. She even projects her ‘little’ feelings onto Aemon: when she’s afraid at night, it’s no longer a matter of _her_ being frightened. It’s _Aemon_ being frightened. She’ll wake them, insist that he’s afraid, and then she’ll wrap her arms around her mother’s round stomach and rest her cheek there. As she ‘comforts’ Aemon, Dany strokes her hair and comforts her. Jon and Dany never call her out on it. It seems important to her to play the protector’s role, so they let her. Even if seeing her taking steps towards independence is difficult for Jon.

“Leave her be,” Jon defends firmly. “Don’t upset my daughter.”

 _You’re lucky Arya’s not here,_ Jon thinks. _She’d have smacked you by now for teasing Lyaella so._

But Lyaella is not done, and she wants to fight this battle herself.

“Milk is for babies and I am _big_ ,” Lyaella tells Tormund. “Aemon will need milk and not figs, but I need figs.”

“You need giant’s milk is what you need. Dragon milk seems to produce fairy-like babies I can juggle while I’m unconscious.” 

“ _No_!” Lyaella scolds. It’s nearly booming: the volume and severity of her tone surprise both Jon and Dany. They share an impressed look. “Don’t talk about my mamma’s milk! You don’t know! Dragons eat giants! They eat ‘em up! They’re _stong_! I’m _stong_! Aemon is _stong_! Rhae is _stong_! You are not being nice!”

Tormund whistles lowly. “Your _words_ aren’t quite so delicate, are they?” Lyaella utterly ignores him. She leaves his side and leans against Dany. Dany holds her hand securely.

“Aw, I’m sorry, Little Snow.”

“I’m not snow. I’m fire.” She doesn’t even spare him a look.

“I’ll let you prove how strong you are. If you can open my fist up, you’ll be stronger than every man I’ve ever met. None of them can do it. Not one.”

He slows, and Lyaella does, too. She looks skeptically at his tightly clenched fist.

“Not one? Not even _Fawder_?”

Jon can’t say he’s ever tried to wrench Tormund’s fist open, nor has he seen anyone else do so. But he plays along.

“I tried many times beyond the Wall, Ly, but I couldn’t,” he says solemnly.

Tormund holds his fist out towards Lyaella. Lyaella observes it. She looks up at Dany for reassurance, and when Dany nods encouragingly, she steps closer. She sets her fingers on Tormund’s and begins pulling, and at first, Jon’s terrified that Tormund _isn’t_ going to let her win. _I’ll kill him,_ Jon thinks furiously. _I didn’t lie to her for nothing._

But after half a minute or so of straining and pulling, when Lyaella looks close to giving up, Tormund suddenly cries out, alarmed. His fingers fly open as if Lyaella has shocked him; it’s so believable that, for a second, Jon thinks maybe Lyaella has pinched him or stabbed him with her nails. But she’s as stunned as they are. When Tormund looks at her in awe and massages his ‘sore’ fingers, she beams. She tumbles into giggles shortly after.

“I did it! Mamma! Daddy! I did it!”

“We’re so proud of you,” Jon praises. She runs for his arms, and he sweeps her up and cradles her to his heart. He kisses her sweet-smelling hair. “You’re strong. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.”

“Dragon milk is _good_.”

“Yes,” he agrees, humoring her. He kisses her scalp. “Aemon is so lucky to have such a clever, strong elder sister.”

From the way she inflates with pride, he knows he couldn’t have given her a better compliment.She smiles the rest of the walk, and though Jon had originally planned to mention her ‘ice circles’ to Tormund then— to get the conversation out of the way— he decides to wait. He doesn’t want to see Lyaella withdraw into fearful silence now. Not when she’s giggling so happily, carefree and brimming with pride.

 _Later,_ he decides. _I’ll talk to him later._

He pretends that’s simply for Lyaella’s benefit and not for his own.

V.

Lyaella dominates Yara’s attention the entire feast. Yara hardly has time between questions and comments from the princess to say much to anyone else. Daenerys manages to ask her how her travels were, but soon Lyaella is chattering on about a book she read about the Ironborn, and Daenerys excuses herself from the conversation.

“She likes Yara more than she likes me,” Tormund comments. He sounds surprised, but he doesn’t seem too vexed by it.

“Perhaps because Yara doesn’t aggravate her on purpose,” Daenerys suggests.

She looks up as a server approaches. He holds a tray of fish out questioningly, and Daenerys shakes her head. She’s full of all the things Lyaella piled on her plate at the start of the meal: fruits, breads— anything she felt ‘Aemon wanted’. She’s well-fed because of it, content, and sleepy. And if Arya were here, she’d be deeply happy.

That thought pricks at her heart. She tells herself what she always does when the missing gets painful: _gone now is not gone forever. She’s not another person I’ve lost. She’s still with me…just at a distance._ It doesn’t comfort her much now, with the sound of everyone’s laughter echoing around her and emphasizing her sudden loneliness, but her son does. His strong movements draw her focus within, and she feels her heart soften. She strokes her stomach softly for the next few minutes, only half-listening to the conversation around her. She feels as if she and her child are having their own conversation within their own world. It fills her heart to bursting. _I love you,_ she thinks, and she smiles as she feels him twist within her.

“Do you see that, Dragon Mamma?” Tormund demands. He nudges her arm, his touch uncharacteristically gentle. She lifts her eyes from the mound of her stomach and looks to Tormund. He raises his tankard up and gestures towards Lyaella and Yara. Lyaella’s impersonating someone— probably somebody from history, and likely an ancestor— and her attempts at deepening her voice have Yara snorting into her ale. “She gets that humor from her Uncle Tormund.”

“Her Arya, actually,” Daenerys corrects. She smiles. “She always does funny voices like that when they read together.”

“Where _is_ the little Night King-Killer?” Tormund demands. He turns and scans the people at their table as if to double check he hasn’t overlooked her.

“Storm’s End,” Daenerys answers. “With Gendry.”

“Oh,” he realizes. “Well, that’s for the best. I owe her five tankards of mead and a horse, which I haven’t got.”

“I’d ask for _what_ , but something tells me it’s some drunken competition likely instigated by my Hand.”

“You should play with us sometime,” Tormund coaxes. “You never do. I think you’d be hilariously good at it, too. A little ale would make your son fierce and strong.”

It all happens very quickly. Tormund leans to the side and pats her stomach, and Dany feels her heart plummet to her toes so forcefully that it leaves her feeling sick. Her reaction is immediate and instinctive: she violently flinches and wraps her arms around her stomach as much as she can, shielding it. She doesn’t make a single sound, but in seconds, Jon has a fistful of Tormund’s cloak. He wrenches him back so fiercely that Tormund nearly topples from his seat, leaving him completely taken aback. He stares up at Jon, wide-eyed, and Jon stares back at him, his jaw set and eyes hard.

“Don’t,” Jon bites. His voice is made of ice.

“Okay…” Tormund says slowly, working to keep his voice calm. Dany feels the opposite of calm: her heart is racing so fast she feels lightheaded, and she can’t seem to lower her arms from her stomach. “…Don’t touch the Dragon Queen. Aye, Jon, aye…I understand…it’s all right, Snow, come here…it’s all right…”

It _is_ — Tormund never wished her any harm, and both she and Jon know that— but it’s also not. Because Dany feels close to tears for no reason at all, and that brings forth a wave of both humiliation and shame. Her king is equally tormented.

Tormund tugs Jon down into his embrace and hugs him tightly. He pats his back firmly; Jon gradually relaxes enough that his back isn’t stick-straight, but his shoulders never release their tension.

“It’s all right,” Tormund repeats. “I would never hurt her or your Littlest Snow. I wouldn’t.”

“Just don’t touch her stomach,” Jon orders. “Just don’t.”

Tormund pats Jon’s back again and then releases him. He rises after that and wordlessly switches seats with Jon, putting Jon at Dany’s left side rather than Tormund. Jon pulls her chair across the stone floor, and as soon as it’s pressed to his, he wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her into him. Dany can hear his heart racing as she hides her face into his jerkin. His hand strokes over her hair, down her back, over her hip. It comes to rest on the side of her stomach, and that’s where it stays, a large, heavy heat that soothes her heart. She wishes she didn’t feel the way that she does about people touching her stomach, but she can’t help it. It gets worse with each day that passes. Lately, it’s been so bad that she shies away from any touch beyond Jon and Lyaella’s. Even Ser Davos’s hand makes her heart lurch. She had always known that this pregnancy would reopen old wounds for them, but she expected the brunt of it to happen during the birth. She hadn’t expected this long, drawn out response, but it’s oftentimes crippling.

Her anxiety has unsettled her son. With every rapid thrum of her heart, he grows more and more restless. His squirms turn to nudges and his nudges turn to jabs and his jabs turn to kicks; soon, it feels as if he's wedged his feet behind her ribs. Every kick is sharp enough to leave her feeling a bit winded. 

"What?" Jon murmurs, worried. He strokes her belly, his hand roaming from one side to the next, to the peak, to the underside. Searching for something. He finds it as his hand presses at her left side. "Oh." 

This baby isn't used to anxiety. Not like Lyaella had been. Dany has largely spent this pregnancy laughing, eating, and loving; there have been very few moments of full-body anxiety. On the rare occasion that it happens, Aemon protests it. 

Jon's not the only one who's noticed her discomfort. 

“Mamma, what’s wrong?” Lyaella frets. She’s off her chair and climbing onto what’s left of Daenerys’s lap in an instant. Her little hands cradle Dany’s stomach. “Aemon?”

“No,” Daenerys reassures her. She kisses her scalp. “Aemon is just fine.” She takes Lyaella’s right hand and moves it, pressing it where she can feel Aemon’s kicks. Jon pulls his hand away to allow Lyaella space to feel. Her face illuminates the second she does. She rubs affectionate circles into Dany's belly.

"He's dancing," she declares.

It doesn't feel like dancing. Dany feels him squirm again, and his next few kicks land just behind her left ribs. They're forceful enough to make her shift uncomfortably, but she hardly flinches; she's come to love even the badly-placed kicks. She often counts every nudge and twist, starting anew at dawn and murmuring the final count to Jon as they ready for bed each night. His movements reassure her like nothing else, and Jon and Lyaella cherish them nearly as much as Dany does. 

Dany smiles down at Lyaella. "Really? Dancing? Does your brother like to dance?"

"Yes," Lyaella answers. She reaches up and touches Dany's cheek in concern as Dany shifts in discomfort again. Dany can feel Jon's eyes on her, too. She reaches over and rubs his thigh to let him know she's fine.

"Are you _hungy_?" her daughter frets. 

Dany laughs. "For once, no, I'm not. Aemon is kicking my ribs."

Lyaella's hand goes to her own ribs as if she's reminding herself where that is. She scans Dany's rounded stomach after that, clearly searching for that spot in her mother. 

"It hurts?" she worries. Her grey eyes are soft and wounded at the very thought. 

"No," Dany assures her. It's a half-lie. Physically, it feels sharp and jarring, but she's glad for it all the same. _It's half-pain and half-love,_ she thinks then, though she doesn't say that to her daughter. _So many things are._ "It's just uncomfortable."

Lyaella frowns. "Why?" 

She prods Lyaella's rib with her forefinger; Lyaella falls into ticklish giggles at once.

"Because it feels like that!" Dany says. She meant it to reassure Lyaella, but Lyaella looks down at her own stomach and prods her rib much harder than Dany had, and then harder again after that, her face furrowing in pain.

"Don't do that," Jon says at once, concerned. He grabs her hand. "You'll bruise yourself. What are you doing that for?" 

"I seeing-- I was seeing if it hurts," she tells them. She lays over Dany's stomach and rests her cheek between her breasts. She wraps her arms around her belly sweetly. "It does hurt. Can I help, Mamma?" 

There's little Lyaella can do, but Daenerys pretends differently. She guides Lyaella's hand and presses it just below her left ribs.

"Yes. Set your hand right here, and tell Aemon to move elsewhere. I bet he'll listen to you."

Lyaella takes that task very seriously. She sits back up in Dany's lap and nods, her silver brow furrowing determinedly. Her little hand gently pushes and rubs over the spot Aemon's been kicking, but as far as Dany can tell from his kicks, that only encourages him to kick harder. He doesn't stop until Jon's hand splays across the front of her belly, but Dany has no way to know if it was Jon's touch that soothed his sharp kicks to nudges or if it was just a coincidence. 

Lyaella curls against Daenerys once she's assured that Aemon is no longer kicking so hard. Dany's quiet as she listens to Lyaella's contented breathing and Jon's conversation with Tormund. 

“ _Muver_?” Lyaella asks suddenly.

“Yes?”

“What is geld?”

Daenerys looks over the top of Lyaella’s head and seeks Yara’s eyes. She assumes this question is coming from something Lyaella and Yara discussed at the start of the meal. When Yara senses her gaze and turns to meet it, Dany mouths ' _gelding?'._ Yara appears unabashed: she shrugs.

“It’s…it’s when…”

She flounders for the right words, and Jon intercedes.

“It’s like shackling someone. Do you want to go to the Dragon Pit this evening? I heard a rumor that the dragons were spotted on their way back here.”

That changes the gears in Lyaella’s mind immediately. She becomes quite focused on speeding up the feast after that. She tries to get Jon to eat his food faster, she inhales whatever she’s given, and she tells him _you had enough, Fawder,_ after only one goblet of wine.

“I think she’s ready to go,” Sansa comments.

It’s a bit dry: Lyaella’s impatience is obvious and somewhat rude. But she’s so excited to see Moonbloom that she either doesn’t know she's being rude or she doesn’t care.

“Moonbloom’s back,” Dany explains to both Sansa and Yara. In Lyaella’s absence, Yara struck up conversation with Sansa, and the two have been chatting about trade for quite some time.

“Ah,” Sansa realizes. “In that case, I’m surprised you’ve kept her still this long.”

“A queen wants what a queen wants. Isn’t that right, Lyaella?” Yara says.

Lyaella smiles bashfully. And though Dany knows Lyaella is remarkably disciplined, having spent all morning in the audience chamber with her parents, two hours in tutoring, and another hour with her Arya-appointed dancing master, Daenerys doesn’t want her to think that being royalty means instant gratification. A queen wants what a queen wants— yet sometimes she must wait for it.

“We will finish the feast, and then we will go,” she tells Lyaella firmly. Lyaella sighs, but she doesn’t argue. “Why don’t you go back to your seat and eat some dessert?”

“No, _tank_ you,” Lyaella answers. She hugs Dany’s stomach and nuzzles her cheek against her bosom. “I want to stay with you and Aemon.”

Dany should’ve anticipated that. Lyaella’s already eaten more in one sitting than she ever has, and she has no maximum for hugs as she does food. Thankfully, the same can be said for Dany. She strokes Lyaella’s hair and holds her close. She thinks Aemon must find the slight weight of Lyaella comforting: his twisting and nudging settle, and it almost seems that the two drift to sleep at the same time. Lyaella’s breathing evens out and deepens as Aemon falls still. The warmth of Lyaella against the front of her body rouses Dany’s persistent exhaustion: suddenly, the only thing in the world that _she_ wants is to go to her chambers and sleep. But a queen must wait.

She drifts between conversations, her eyes heavy and her sleeping children neighboring her heart. By the time the feast ends, she’s so tired her eyes keep drifting closed. She feels Jon’s kiss against her cheek, but she can’t find the energy to do more than hum questioningly at him.

“I’ll take Ly to Moonbloom,” he offers. “Ghost is about as tired as you are. He’d be happy to curl in bed with you.”

Lyaella stirs and perks up at the mention of Moonbloom, but Dany’s not able to rebound from her exhaustion as well as her daughter can. She lifts her eyelids enough to glance at Jon. His expression is calm and genuine; he leans in and kisses her again, and she reaches up, her fingers stroking weakly through his curls.

“You’re half-asleep already,” he points out. “Ghost’ll be good company.”

 _The best company would be you. Or Arya._ She doesn’t say it, but she thinks it. She tries not to talk about Arya much at all; it upsets Lyaella deeply, and she thinks it upsets Jon a bit, too. But she misses her all the time, and never more than she does early in the morning or late at night. Or at feasts where her voice is a gaping absence in every single conversation. If Arya were here, they’d already be walking back to Rhaella’s Fortress, laughing about something Yara or Tormund said, their arms linked or hands entwined. _If Arya were here,_ Dany thinks, _Jon and I would be less fearful. I know we would._

A familiar fear trickles over her, turning her insides icy as her neck and palms grow hot. _What if she isn’t back before Aemon comes? What if she isn’t here?_

She’s afraid. She has never been able to shake that deep feeling of understanding and _safety_ she’d felt the moment Arya pressed that dagger into her hand. It tangled into their relationship in a way that could always be felt, even if Dany could never figure out how to articulate it. With her gone, that particular feeling is, too. And she’s going to need it when the time comes to journey through childbirth once more. She needs the people who _see_ her, who love her and take care of her. She needs _her_ people: Jon, Arya, and little Lyaella.

“I’m headed back as well,” Sansa says. “We can walk together.”

“As am I. Arya said I could use her chambers while I’m here,” Yara says.

There’s a thud— likely a tankard hitting the table— and Tormund says: “She didn’t offer _me_ that!”

“You still owe her a horse, mead, and three goats.”

“Three goats?! Three fucking goats?! No, I never agreed to that—!”

“You did, we were in this very hall and…”

Dany drifts off for the rest of that conversation. She stirs once as Lyaella slips off her lap and again as she feels Aemon kick up against her rib. She sets a drowsy hand over him and rubs; that seems to settle him this time.

“— what does she want with three fucking goats, anyway?!”

“‘Fucking’ is not a nice word,” Lyaella informs Tormund. “And you can’t put those fingers up, ‘cause _Fawder_ said so.”

“He’s not _my_ Father. And ‘fucking’ is a great word. You say it right and everything.”

“It’s _not!_ And he is your king. King-rules are big rules,” Lyaella counters.

“She’s got you there,” Yara tells Tormund. Dany feels a gentle grasp at her elbow. “I’ll walk with you, Daenerys.”

“Okay,” she relents, mainly because she truly _does_ want to go to sleep, and she doesn’t have the energy to argue. She hefts her eyelids up and looks at Lyaella. “Is that all right?”

If Lyaella desperately wants her at the Dragon Pit, she’ll beat back her drowsiness and stand by her side for as long as she needs. Her daughter’s happiness and comfort are more important to her than her own. But the same can be said the other way around.

“Yes, Mamma, it’s great,” Lyaella answers, her eyes soft and genuine. “I see you at bedtime.”

Her sincerity is good enough for Dany. She can’t get on Drogon anyway; she’s far too big. And despite Drogon’s attempts to rein them in, the younger dragons are still too rough around her at times.

She holds onto the edge of the table for support as she rises. She kisses Lyaella’s forehead and Jon’s lips before they go their separate ways.

“I’ll kiss Dogon for you, Mamma,” Lyaella promises. At that, Dany leans over to kiss Lyaella again.

VI.

Ghost turns out to be perfect company.

By the time Dany makes it back to Rhaella’s Fortress, she’s so exhausted she wouldn’t be able to talk much to anyone, anyway. Ghost is comforting and silent. Ezhi helps her ready for bed, and once she’s beneath layers of heavy goosedown, Ghost lays behind her and curls around her body. His fur is as soft as it is warm, and it smells of pine and spruce from his forays into the forest. Lurking just beneath that woodsy scent is the irony scent of mud, and usually, that smell twists her stomach and makes her sick (so much like blood— so much like the night she died), but now, it’s muted. The overarching piney smell is stronger. It makes her think of Arya.

She dreams odd dreams, but that’s nothing new. She uses Longclaw to chip away at a cave wall on Dragonstone— she nurses a newborn dragon that spits up fire and burns straight through her breast right down to her heart— she sits in a copper tub filled with frothing green, seven wailing babies clutched in her arms— she labors in Jon’s arms at a frozen waterfall, and when she bears down, golden coins and jewels rain from her womb…jagged rubies and pointed sapphires rip inside her, and she feels stinging pain throb down into her kneecaps…beneath her and Jon, gems and coins bob in a lake made of blood…

“Dany.”

She jerks from her dreams, her breath catching in her throat. She finds Jon’s face hovering above hers. Her hand flies to her middle, panic knotting her lungs. She half-expects to feel Longclaw protruding from her belly. As she smoothes her trembling hands over the rounded shape of her stomach, she gradually relaxes.

“What?” she murmurs. Her eyelids drift shut again. She licks her dry lips and reaches blindly to the side, searching for their daughter. “Ly?”

“Lyaella’s fine. I’ve got a surprise,” Jon whispers. His voice is full— _with happiness,_ Dany thinks, and despite how disoriented she is, her heart swells. His warm hand settles gently against her face. She leans into his touch as he strokes her cheek. “I know it’s late, and I’m sorry for waking you, but I think you’d be put out if I didn’t.”

Dany feels the mattress shift as Jon moves away, and then it shifts again. As her eyes lock with grey ones, she thinks she must still be asleep. She waits with bated breath for something surreal to happen— for her hair to turn to flames or the bed beneath her to morph into an open grave— something to indicate that she’s still dreaming. But what happens is very different from that. It’s surreal, yes— but only because it’s something Dany’s been waiting for for a very long time now. She parts her lips to say something, and then her sister is lying at her side, gripping her close in a tight embrace. Dany feels laughter bubble up her throat at the smell of her— woodsy like Ghost, more cedar than pine— and she feels strangely weak as she reaches up to hug her back, like she couldn’t possibly hold her close enough or long enough. And she can’t. Because she can’t make up for all the hugs they’ve missed out on over the past few months.

“You’re back,” Dany breathes. She feels confused, dazed…she strokes Arya’s hair and seeks Jon’s eyes. He’s perched on the edge of the bed, a soft smile consuming his expression. _Am I asleep?_ she wants to ask him. Her head feels foggy and heavy, and despite the thrumming of Arya’s heart against her own, she still can’t wrap her head around what’s happened. It isn’t until she feels a strong tumbling motion inside her belly— likely Aemon rolling into a different position— that she starts to believe that she’s truly awake.

“I am. And you’re _massive_ ,” Arya marvels. She laughs into Dany’s loose hair, and then she leans back enough to look down at her stomach. “Gods, you severely underemphasized this in your letters. I was expecting a little belly, nothing like this…I swear you were this size when you had Lyaella…you’re sure you’ve got three moonturns left?” her hand presses to the side of Dany’s stomach as she talks, and Dany’s hand flies there instinctively, but not to push her away. She settles her hand over Arya’s and moves it to the spot she can feel Aemon moving. She rests her forehead against Arya’s shoulder, and for a quiet moment, they rest together and appreciate Aemon’s rolls and kicks. Arya’s smile is audible in her voice when she speaks. “He’s either very excited that I’m here or very furious.”

“He’s excited. Happy. Relieved,” Dany answers. _Like I am._ Her relief surges up her throat; she feels her eyes sear. “Arya, I’m so glad you’re here. I was so worried. I’ve missed you. _We’ve_ missed you. Lyaella…” she stops suddenly, her heart rising up her throat. “Oh, Ly’s going to be ecstatic.”

“She was. I arrived a half-hour ago, and Grey Worm brought me to the Dragon Pit. Lyaella cried in my arms for a long while, and then she pulled out her queen-voice and _forbade_ me from leaving ever again. I assured her I wasn’t going anywhere for quite some time.”

For a moment, she thinks she might be dreaming again. But if it’s a dream, she’s just going to go along with it.

“Truly?”

“Absolutely. I'm stay 'til after the birth. Now that I’ve seen the size of you, I can’t very well leave you here without me…can you even walk?”

Dany’s smile is so wide it makes her cheekbones ache. She aims a light kick at Arya’s leg.

“I’m not _that_ large. I can walk just fine.” _But I need you here for other reasons._ She doesn’t say the words, but she tightens her hold on Arya. “How was your journey here? You could’ve told me you were coming.”

“Longer than I wanted it to be. We hit a few storms, but we were able to sail through. And I wanted to surprise you both. It was well worth it, too. You should’ve heard the sound Jon made when I walked in. He was well and truly shocked.”

“Watch it,” Jon says, but Dany can hear his smile. “Or I’ll tell her how you cried in Lyaella’s arms.”

“I _teared up_. I did not _cry_.”

We _hit a few storms_ , Dany repeats to herself, and she realizes then that Gendry must’ve come along, too. _Of course he did. She’s been with him all this time, she wouldn’t leave him…_ but a part of her feels momentarily frustrated. She gives that selfish part voice for a half-minute, just long enough to think: _she’s been with him all this time…she_ could’ve _left him and given this time to us._ But she scolds herself and pushes that selfish thought away. Gendry is no threat to her relationship with Arya. Arya is her family. She’s here. That’s what matters.

“Where _is_ Lyaella?” she asks.

“Asleep,” Arya answers. “She read _me_ a book before bed.”

“She cried again at that,” Jon quips. 

“I did _not_ , I—”

“Sorry, yes, of course. She didn’t cry. My mistake. She had tears in her eyes. Tears formed in her eyes, and then they slid down her face, and she made sad little sounds, overcome with emotion. But she didn’t cry, though.”

Arya twists and turns over to face Jon. Dany hears a sound that must be her foot making contact with some part of him. He laughs, and Dany can’t help but laugh along with him.

“Though she read me a chapter from _Fire Upon the Grass,_ which was an…interesting choice for a child.” There’s a pause. “And who told her ‘geld’ means to tie something up?”

“I did. You didn’t tell her what it really means, did you?” Jon demands.

“No, but you’ve got her all confused now. She thinks she’s being quite clever by using that word instead of ‘tying’. You don’t ever expect to hear the little princess commanding someone to ‘geld the horses’.”

“Ah,” Jon says, after a short pause. Dany purses her lips against laughter. “I’ll talk to her about it in the morning.”

Dany isn’t even sure she wants the morning to come. She knows Arya will leave soon and go to wherever she and Gendry are staying— probably the guest house tonight, as Yara is currently in her chambers— but she’s afraid she’ll wake at the first light of dawn to find none of this ever happened. Lately, her dreams are confusingly vivid, and sometimes that vividness comes in the form of loveliness….this could be one of those dreams. It could be.

But instead of dwelling on the distance to come, she focuses on the closeness of the present. It’s so nice just to be able to talk to her again, to not have to write out everything she wants to say and then wait and wait for a response. It’s so nice to know she’s okay, to hear her smile as she talks about what she and Gendry have been up to in Storm’s End, to realize that the bond can be stretched and not break. That the ones she loves are really here to stay despite the distances they may wander. She doesn’t even mind if it’s a dream. She’s just happy to be in it.

When Arya finally leaves for the night, Dany sinks into Jon’s embrace. After a kiss so soft and sweet it warms her from crown to toe, she decides she’s likely awake.

“I’m glad you woke me.”

He cradles her face in his calloused hands and kisses her again. “I knew you would be.”

Her dreams are still vivid and strange when she falls asleep, but they’re silly more than disquieting. She wakes up laughing once, though she can’t remember what was so funny as she lay there in the dark. Every time she rouses that night— which is as often as it always is, whether from pressure against her bladder or Aemon's movements— she wakes with the ghost of a smile.

VII.

Sansa passes a plate to Bran. Once he’s got it resting on his lap, she turns to her sister.

“Sausage?”

“Yes. So then what happened?” Arya asks.

Sansa reaches into the center of the blanket for the sausages. As she piles Arya’s plate, she continues on with her story.

“Well, after he beat the farmer in that particular drinking game, the farmer agreed to give him one goat.”

Arya snickers. She takes the plate from Sansa. “I still can’t believe you went with them.”

“I didn’t have much of a choice. Tormund and Yara are very persistent, and the dragons were being too noisy overhead for me to get any sleep, anyway,” Sansa mutters. She begins dishing out clotted cream onto her own plate, her heart a mixture of emotions. She’d been annoyed for most the night by Tormund, but it _had_ been fun: she’d slept through the night for the first time in a long while upon returning to her chambers, exhausted from being out so late and walking so far.

“Where is the goat now?” Bran questions curiously. “Arya, will you pass me—” Arya tosses a napkin his way. “Thanks.”

“In the stables, I believe. Arya, what _do_ you want with three goats? Tormund kept asking me, but I genuinely had no idea.”

Arya doesn’t look up from her tea. She continues stirring sugar into it. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out. I don’t even remember asking for them. Perhaps I was craving goat cheese at the time.”

Arya takes a sip of the steaming mixture. Whatever type of tea it is, it doesn’t smell good to Sansa. It reminds her of wet soil.

“I suppose we could always use three more goats in Storm’s End. Some farmer will take them.”

“Oh, release Tormund from that deal if you don’t really want them,” Bran sympathizes. “He’s going to spend his whole trip trying to settle with you.”

“Absolutely not. I’m waiting to see how long it takes him to get the other two goats. And the horse. And the mead.”

Sansa thinks of something Yara had said last night that had humored her— and was partially true.

“Yara says it serves him right for letting someone as small as Arya out-drink him.”

Arya appears haughty as she smears jam onto a roll. “I’m not small.”

She sounds so much like Lyaella that it’s all Sansa can do to keep from laughing at her.

“How _did_ you manage that, Arya?” Bran wonders.

“He doesn’t pace himself well. It’s all in the pacing. You know who’s even better than I am at it?”

“Daenerys?” Bran suggests.

“No, you know she never plays,” Sansa reminds Bran. Though she supposes she may have with Arya before, even if she doesn’t with the rest of them. “Gendry?”

“No. Grey Worm. He’s dangerous.” Arya tears a chunk off her roll, chewing in a decidedly un-lady-like way. Sansa swallows her corrections. “What’s the most recent update on what’s happening with the Faith? Daenerys and Jon have been writing me on and off about them wanting some…ceremony done at Aemon’s birth? I planned to ask this morning, but Lyaella hardly let me get a word in edgewise. What is this ceremony like? Who would have to be in the birthing room? Strangers?”

Her expression twists with discomfort at the mere thought. She’s clearly of the same mind as the Targaryens on this matter. 

“You should talk to Jon about it,” Bran answers. “He feels very…strongly about the issue.”

“Daenerys, I think, is more willing to do it than he is,” Sansa agrees. In some ways, Jon hasn’t been as insufferable as she thought he’d be this pregnancy, but in other ways, he’s been worse. He doesn’t hover and coddle Daenerys with every step she takes, but he nearly punched the High Septon a week ago for attempting to set a hand on the queen’s belly, and kings ought not to do that. It certainly hadn’t eased the tensions between Jon and the Faith. “Tyrion and Davos think they ought to do it. The blessing. They say not doing so will cause further unnecessary conflict.”

“And Tyrion and Davos don’t know what it is they’re inviting the Septon into. They weren’t there the last time,” Arya snaps. Her tone aggravates Sansa. She gives her a sharp look.

“Don’t get upset with _me_ …I’m not the High Septon.”

“I’m not,” Arya defends. “I’m only…I just…” she trails off. “I’ll talk to them about it. I’m headed back soon, anyway. I told Lyaella I’d collect her from the audience chamber and take her to the training yard.”

Bran smiles. “She’s going to be so happy. She admitted to me last week that her current instructor ‘isn’t as good as her _Awa’.”_

Arya smiles. “Well, she’s extremely biased, but I’ll take it.”

A comfortable silence lapses over them as they eat beside Ned Stark’s tree. The Memorial Gardens are cool this morning, and on the edge of every gentle breeze, Sansa hears birds chirping and the melodic twinkling of chimes. Her mother’s tree fills the air with a fresh, floral scent that reminds Sansa of clean linens and home. _I’m happy to be here with them,_ she realizes, her heart light in her chest. But she doesn’t say it aloud. Instead, she piles more food on their plates. She thinks they understand. 

When it comes time for them to go their separate ways, it’s with the ease of knowing they’ll be back together again come supper. Bran leaves for the horse trails, and Arya tucks the tin of remaining mint cakes underneath her arm— likely for Daenerys— before heading towards the audience chamber. Sansa makes up a lie about wanting to pray for a while, and once her siblings are gone, she lifts her basket and begins a familiar trek up the sloping stone path to her left. It’s not too much of a distance; soon, she’s kneeling down in front of an ironwood sapling, her fingers wiping pollen and dirt from the plaque in front of it. She sits there and lets thoughts glide through her mind, never probing too deeply at any of them. She thinks of Theon as a boy. Of him as Reek. And then him as Theon reborn. Had she known that night before the battle against the dead would be the last time she’d speak with him, she would’ve said more. She would’ve stretched the night on. But wasn’t it always like that? When people die, they get to rest: the ones they leave behind are haunted by the undone, the unsaid, the unfelt. The undoing of memories— the gradual forgetting. _Forgetting can feel soft,_ Tyrion had said once. But to Sansa, it isn’t soft at all. It's sharp and piercing pain. To wake and think: _what did my father’s voice sound like? What did my mother’s arms feel like? What did Theon’s smile look like? What did Rickon’s giggle sound like? What did Robb say to me last?…_ it is no gentle relief. It's the loss of something so horrifically irreplaceable that the absence of it is soul-wrenching. It's _missing_ that goes beyond missing.

 _We could stack up our losses and let the weight of them smother us,_ Daenerys had once said. _That’d be quite easy to do, wouldn’t it? Or we could focus on the things that remain— the things we saved from the fire. The people who hold us up._

It was a pretty thought as thoughts go, but it was so easily countered. _And what happens when the ones who hold us up disappear? When they fade away into the dark night— never to be heard again, touched again, seen again? When our families are gone. When we are_ alone. _And we will all be alone. In the end, we always are. It’ll be us, our faded memories of the ones we’ve lost, and our emptiness. Do you exist when all the ones who love you are gone? Do you exist if no one knows you? Not existing sounds soft. So much softer than the alternative._

She’s never voiced those thoughts aloud to Daenerys or anyone. It always comes down to that, though: being alone. It's what she wants— and what she hates— and what she fears— and what she craves. _Nothing’s worth having if you don’t want it._ What if you don't want anything at all? What if everything you want contradicts itself? What if you don’t _know_ what it is that you want? If a person wants nothing at all, are they even alive? Are they here? Or are they undone— the gradually forgotten. The lost.

She tries now to think of what she wants, but she can’t come up with anything more than the core truth. She wants her family to be safe and happy. She wants Tyrion’s friendship, his closeness. She wants to see the princess grow up. She wants Westeros to continue improving day by day. That is all she has.

 _I could love Tyrion. I could be his lady, have his children. Have a family of my own._ But the thought feels sinful, like she’s stealing something from herself. Like she’s coveting some other woman’s life and shackling her own.

She’s so entrenched in her own thoughts that the sound of boots scuffing against the stone path makes her jump. She turns her torso toward the sound so quickly that she feels something pull in her lower back. In her alarmed state, she’s convinced it’s someone who will harm her. So when she sees Yara Greyjoy, she’s genuinely relieved.

“Arya left,” she greets her. She inhales deeply and tries to settle her agitated heartbeat. “She went to the audience chamber. If she’s not there, check the training courtyard.”

Yara arches her left brow. “I know where she is. I wasn’t looking for her, and if I was, I certainly wouldn’t expect to find her at my brother’s tree.”

Sansa turns towards the plaque reading THEON GREYJOY, suddenly aware of how it might look, worried she might have overstepped some invisible boundary. Yara might feel some degree of ownership over Theon and the process of mourning him…she can’t say she wouldn’t feel odd to see Yara knelt at Rickon’s tree. But then again, Yara didn’t know Rickon. Sansa knew Theon longer than Yara did.

Sansa isn’t sure what to say, and so she says nothing. She stays knelt in front of the Ironwood sapling and the plaque, keenly aware of Yara’s presence as she comes to stand at Sansa’s side. Yara doesn’t kneel, though, and Sansa doesn’t rise. She wants to leave, but she feels doing so will mean something— that she wasn’t close enough to Theon to be here, that she doesn’t have a right to be here— and she just can’t relent to that. It’s stubbornness that pins her knees to the dirt. She’s relieved when Yara speaks.

“We don’t commune through trees. Not like you do in the north. Trees don’t mean anything, but I thought if everyone else were honored here, it would only be right for Theon to be as well.”

“I would’ve planted something if you didn’t.” Sansa doesn’t plan the words, but she can’t do anything to pull them back once they’ve been spoken. She feels defensive once they’re out there, on edge: she’s waiting for Yara to tell her Theon was nothing but a hostage to the Starks, never family, that the things she and Theon went through were largely inconsequential. That blood matters most of all. But that can’t be true when Theon is part of the long list of people Sansa has lost, the list containing people she misses, people she needed.

“My brother was often weak, but he tried. Not all men do.”

Sansa feels pulled to defend him. “He was brave when it mattered most.”

Yara’s voice is cool. “Not always. Sometimes, yes. But not always.”

Sansa thinks of all the times she’d begged Theon for his help at Winterfell only to find herself speaking to Reek. But in the end, he had protected her. And the end is what matters. It’s got to be.

She looks back up at Yara. Yara’s dark eyes weigh on her, but despite Sansa’s lower position, she doesn’t feel intimidated. She just feels certain.

“We should remember the times he did,” Sansa says firmly. She looks back at the Ironwood sapling. “That’s who he was. And that’s what matters.”

Yara’s laugh is brash and humorless. “That’s fucking shit. He was the type to rescue, sure, but only after he’d run off in fear first. We shouldn’t idolize the dead and make them better in memory than they were in flesh. Theon was who he was. And we loved him anyway. What is dead may never die— so let us not coddle his memory as if our own thoughts of him are some perfumed shrine. I don’t pity him.”

It was stubbornness that kept Sansa kneeling, but it’s curiosity that makes her rise. Her legs are overrun with pins and needles from sitting on them for so long, but she shifts her weight and ignores it. She looks down at Yara and considers her previous words. _What is dead may never die._ She knows it’s some saying from the Iron Islands, likely with its own specific meaning behind it, but to her, it means something different in that moment. It brings to light some thought she’d had in passing many times, but never hooked into or found much solace in: _if you’re dead, you can’t be hurt anymore._ What is dead may never die. What is dead may never be killed again. What is dead may never feel hunger, or sadness, or loss, or fear, or pain. What is dead is safe. Father is safe: he never has to feel the sting of losing another person he loves. Mother is safe: she never had to see Rickon murdered, she never had to know of the suffering her daughter endured. Rickon is safe: he never has to feel frightened again. Robb, too. He’ll never have to go off to war again. _What is dead may never leave me again. What I’ve lost I’ll never have to lose again. What is dead I should no longer fear being without. I lived through it. I lived._

The lightening she feels in her chest is nearly alarming. Her eyes burn from the rush of it. _I’ve been needing that,_ she realizes, and she’s not even sure what ‘that’ is. A new way to frame her losses? A new way to cope with them? A new truth to believe in? _I’ve been needing that for so long._

“Fine,” Sansa finally says. She looks up at the sky, not wanting Yara to somehow see how deeply that phrase has impacted her. “He could be cowardly and foolish.”

“You and I both know that to be true,” Yara agrees. “Yet I’m here the same as you. Because he could also be loyal and brave on occasion.”

Sansa couldn’t argue with that even if she wanted to, and she doesn’t. She waits until her heart feels settled, and then she looks back at Yara.

“‘What is dead may never die.’ What does it mean on the Iron Islands?”

“Exactly that. We serve the Drowned God, and when we’re baptized, we’re held underwater until we’re unconscious— ‘drowned’, in a way. If we come back, we no longer have anything to fear: we’ve faced death, and in many ways, we’re already dead. Anything that comes after that is child’s play. We’ve nothing to lose.”

Sansa’s initial thought is that it’s utterly barbaric to force someone underwater until they stop breathing. But then she thinks of how she’d been as a child: soft, naive, a flower of a girl just waiting to be crushed underfoot. How would things have been different if she’d had that mentality? If she’d faced death? She would’ve feared nothing. Not Joffrey, not Cersei, not the Mountain.

“‘What is dead may never die, but rises again harder and stronger.’ If you’ve faced the most frightening thing in existence— dying— what is left to fear? It’s why we Ironborn are the way we are.”

She considers Yara’s words longer than she expects herself to. They fill her thoughts the entire journey back to the Garden. They’re both quiet as they walk, the silence pensive and easy. She doesn’t know what Yara’s thinking of, but she’s thinking of all the ways a person can die. All the deaths they can experience. She can think of many ‘deaths’: the way she felt after her father’s head tumbled from his shoulders. The feeling of Ramsay’s hand against the small of her back, forcing her down onto the mattress. The sight of her baby brother’s body. The moment she'd realized the depths of Littlefinger's betrayals.

She’d thought of those things as gashes, as wounds. She’d been walking around ripped open, and no one ever knew how to stitch her back together— least of all her. But perhaps they weren’t wounds. Perhaps they were deaths.

_If you’ve faced the most frightening thing in existence, what is left to fear?_

She lived through it. All of it. And so maybe it’s time to figure out how to _live_. Right then, she thinks she feels safe and brave enough to try to attempt it— whatever that may look like. Whatever she may want. Figuring that out will be the first step.

Yara breaks the silence as they approach the Garden.

“Your sister’s always a sight; somehow her beauty only ever seems to be magnified rather than lessened. But I have to admit the size of her makes me glad I prefer taking women into my bed. I can’t imagine walking around like that.”

Sansa stares at Yara for a confused moment. She doesn’t understand what she’s trying to say. Arya’s size? What about Arya’s size? She’s short, but she’s always been…

And then she realizes who Yara is obviously referring to. Her mind automatically goes to Arya when she hears ‘sister’, so much so that it takes her a moment to realize she’s speaking of Daenerys. She doesn’t call her that. She wonders then if Daenerys sometimes refers to _her_ that way when speaking to Yara. She doubts it. Yara’s probably just so used to hearing Arya and Daenerys refer to each other that way that she assumes it carries over into Sansa’s relationship with the queen.

Despite how much it throws her, she doesn’t feel drawn to correct Yara. It’s only after she’s reframed the statement to be about Daenerys that she’s able to make sense of it and process the rest of Yara’s words, and then she feels heat rise to her cheeks. She couldn’t imagine saying something like that proudly, but then again— what does Yara have to fear? The scorn of the Seven? Who cares when you’ve died and risen. Who cares.

“She’s very happy to be with child,” Sansa admits. “She’s not put out by it at all. She tells me it’s lovely.”

“Yes, she’s remarkably cheerful for someone who has to hold onto something sturdy just to stand up. I couldn’t take the loss of independence.”

Sansa’s curiosity gets the better of her again. She wonders if Yara was ever a little lady sitting at Pyke dreaming of one day marrying a handsome lord and carrying his children. She highly doubts it, if only because Yara seems to be so certain of who she is and what she wants that it seems unlikely she’s ever been anything _but_ that.

“You never wanted to have children?” Sansa asks. After she asks it, she briefly worries it was inappropriate, but she shrugs off that fear. _Who cares,_ she thinks again.

“I only ever wanted to do what my father couldn’t: rule the Iron Islands properly. Bring safety to them, stability.” She pauses. “I suppose that’s all I ever thought about.”

Sansa smiles. “And I only ever thought about marrying some highborn boy and giving him sons. Being the lady of somewhere warm. Once, I even dreamed of being the queen.”

“Oh, I know. I’ve heard stories from Arya,” Yara assures her. Her lips twitch. “Quentyn was taken with you for a while. He told me. Why didn’t you run off to Dorne and have his babies?”

Sansa frowns. It embarrasses her to know that Quentyn divulged his feelings to Yara, and even worse to think that he might’ve told her what happened that night he kissed her. _Who else knows? Arya?_ She fears it— and she doubts it. If Arya knew, she’d have interrogated Sansa long before now. Quentyn was truly the man she’d dreamed of as a girl, and Arya would’ve seen that. She would’ve demanded to know why she’d turned him away.

And what would Sansa have told her?

“I guess I didn’t want to,” Sansa finally admits. She feels upset again. It’s a sadness born from confusion and embarrassment. She’s waiting on edge for Yara to ask her _why_. She has no answer, and she’s even more humiliated that she doesn’t. But Yara doesn’t ask.

“I understand that,” she says instead. She stills just outside the front courtyard of the Garden; she gestures towards the gates. “I’m going to see if Tormund’s found his other two goats if you’d like to come along. I’m trying to convince Arya to challenge him to another contest— winner forfeits all debts, loser doubles them.”

It’s petty, chaotic fun, and Sansa knows she should think it’s below them, but she finds herself biting back an amused smile instead. It’s entertaining, at the very least, and it’s very different from the everyday stoicism of managing finances for the kingdom.

“I’ll come along as a mediator. That’s what elder sisters are for,” she decides.

She thinks Yara is going to challenge that, perhaps by pointing out that Sansa is as amused by it as the rest of them. But she doesn’t. She merely nods, her smile a ghost at the corners of her mouth.

“And what would Arya do without you and your lady-like guidance?”

Sansa scowls at her, and for the first time, Yara’s laugh sounds genuine rather than dry.

“You could drink them both under the table if you really wanted to. I’ve been watching.”

“I could not,” Sansa refutes on instinct, but it’s truly probably more that she _would not._ Despite her insistence, that comment fills her with someone that feels akin to pride. “I hardly ever drink.”

“No,” Yara agrees. “But you know how to play games. You know how to win. Like I said. I’ve been watching.” Sansa doesn’t know what to respond to that with. She wants to say _the only games I’m good at aren’t played anymore,_ but maybe there are other games she could be good at, too.

Yara continues. “I can have you wiping the floor with them by the time I leave. We’d be a fearsome team.”

Sansa’s neck feels warm, though she’s not sure why. She anchors into her stubbornness like it’s some sort of armor. “I don’t want to play. I just want to observe.”

“All right,” Yara shrugs. “Suit yourself. Let me know when you do want to play. I’ll gladly train you myself.”

Yara says nothing else, but the heat at Sansa’s neck travels up to her cheeks, and she feels strange the rest of the walk.

VIII.

That night, Lyaella drifts to sleep while reading a particularly challenging paragraph from _Passages of the Dead_.

Her words slur and trail off into silence. In the time it takes Jon to lift his cheek from the top of Dany’s head to glance down at Lyaella, her eyelids have already shut. She sits there between Dany’s legs for a beat, swaying half-asleep with the book still clutched weakly in her hands, and then she gives in. She sinks against her mother, her cheek resting against the highest peak of her belly and the book falling to the side. Jon isn’t surprised in the slightest: he assumed she would fall asleep much sooner than she had. She’s exhausted from a long day of training with Arya, riding Storm with Jon, and carrying book after book from the library, and the dull topic of _Passages of the Dead_ doesn’t help matters. A book on graves and tombs in the north has little relevance to a southern princess.

Daenerys gently shifts Lyaella, carefully moving her little chin so it’s not digging into her stomach, and then she reaches down for the book. She closes it softly and passes it to Jon. He leans to the side and sets it atop the towering stack of books by Lyaella’s bed.

“You may have to warm our bed alone tonight,” Dany murmurs. Her frown is audible.

Jon looks down at her. She’s combing gently through Lyaella’s curls, her touch so gentle and sweet it’s nearly reverent, but Jon senses her disappointment. With the position Lyaella’s drifted to sleep in, she’ll be difficult to move without waking. Jon feels a prick of frustration: they’ve been waiting to be alone together all day now, and it doesn’t seem like they’re any closer now than they were an hour ago. Considering the nights are their _only_ time to belong to each other— during the days, they belong to their kingdom— it’s deeply disheartening.

“There’s no warmth without you in it,” Jon admits. It’s _her_ he craves: he has no interest in his own touch, especially if it means his wife is stuck here stewing in her own frustration. He studies the way their daughter is sprawled atop her. “If we wait a bit to make sure she’s deeply asleep, I can move her. She won’t wake.”

It’s likely untrue. Even if he can move her enough that Dany can slip out from beneath her, Lyaella will probably still wake. She’s been waking often lately, sometimes from nightmares and sometimes because she ‘misses them’. Jon and Dany have been lucky to get a couple of hours alone in their own bed a few times a week, and a couple of hours a few times a week aren’t enough. If he could touch Daenerys every moment of every day, he would. He finds her more beautiful with each passing day, and the shape of her changing body is deeply alluring to him in some primal way he can’t put words to. Lately, it’s a magnetism that goes both ways: she’s as fond of his body as he is of hers. She wants him most every night, and he wants her constantly. Unfortunately for them, the opportunity to have each other comes sporadically.

He sits in thinly-veiled frustration, waiting for when Lyaella’s breathing has deepened enough to try moving her. As he attempts it, Dany holds her breath. He carefully eases his fingers beneath Lyaella's upper arms and moves her painstakingly slowly, edging her off Daenerys inch by inch. By the time he successfully settles her against her pillows, he’s fighting back a yawn, and his wife looks similarly exhausted. He helps her rise from the bed, and he tells himself he won’t mention the whispered banter they’d shared earlier in the day, their promises of _later_ on the edge of every kiss and every lingering touch. She’s tired, and she’s got the right to be. He can’t imagine carrying what she carries each day— and that’s only the physical strain of it.

Her fingers go for the ties of her dress as soon as the door between their chambers and Lyaella’s has been closed. Jon steps over to help her with the lacing she can’t reach. She relaxes as he sweeps her hair over her shoulder and begins loosening and opening the back of her dress.

“I’m starving,” she whispers. He gently pulls at the ties laced up the length of her spine, exposing it notch by notch as her dress is gradually undone. “Do you think Ezhi left those mint cakes that Arya brought earlier?”

He kisses the back of her neck as he pulls the last of the lacing free, allowing her dress to slip from her shoulders and slide down. It catches at her stomach, and Jon can’t stop himself from wrapping his arms around her from behind. He buries his face in the crook of her neck and cups her exposed breasts. Her skin is so hot beneath his hands that he momentarily fears she’s ill, but the way she relaxes into his touch as his thumbs caress her tells him she’s everything but discontent.

“If she didn’t leave them, I’ll have more brought up,” he murmurs into her skin. He follows it with a kiss. Her hand reaches back to cup the back of his head, her nails teasing softly at his scalp as she holds his lips to her neck. As he kisses her, he relishes in the rhythm of her heart thrumming steadily just beneath the heaviness of her breast. He thumbs over the ridge of her scar, his own heart picking up pace to match hers. He kisses her neck a final time and then forces himself to straighten. He moves his hands down to her dress and helps push it all the way from her frame; it puddles at her feet, a pond of shining emerald silk. “Let’s find you something to eat.”

She wraps herself in a silk dressing gown and joins him on the balcony. He gently grasps her forearms and helps steady her as she eases down onto the goosedown pallet. They’d had it brought out here for Lyaella’s benefit a few weeks prior— she’d wanted to sleep ‘with Moonbloom’, and allowing her to snooze on the balcony beneath the open sky was their compromise— but he and Dany have been using it more than Lyaella has. Jon prefers being cool as he sleeps, and Dany is as good as a roaring fire when she’s bundled up beneath the blankets in their chambers; the cool night breeze is a nice reprieve at times.

Dany slides back to sit between his legs once she’s lowered onto the pallet. She leans against his chest and looks up at the moonlit sky as they snack on the cakes Ezhi thoughtfully left behind.

“Ezhi knows you’ve been eating during the night,” Jon murmurs. His lips are curved up in a smile as he leans down to kiss her shoulder. The silk of her dressing gown is pleasantly cool; he tightens his arm around her and hugs her close, delighting in the softness of it. “She’s probably seen the crumbs in the bed.”

Dany elbows him gently. “For the last time, that was Lyaella!”

“Lyaella _hates_ rum cake,” Jon reminds her.

“Oh, and how did you know it was rum cake?” she challenges. She tips her head back and looks up at him; her eyes sparkle mischievously in the silver light. “Did you lick up the crumbs?”

He leans his face over hers and kisses her soft lips. “I could taste the rum cake when I kissed you that morning.”

There’s a short pause. Her smile is so radiant Jon feels his heart flutter in his chest at the sight of it.

“Fine. It was a half-lie. Lyaella and I shared the cakes. There were rum cakes _and_ honey cakes.”

He hugs her to him at that, his smile so wide it threatens to split his face into two. He rests his nose against her braids, and for a quiet, happy moment, all he can think about is how much he loves the smell of her. _Roses are happiness,_ he thinks, certain.He slips his hand inside her half-closed dressing gown and rests it atop her bare belly. _I wouldn’t have known happiness if it weren’t for her._

He cradles and touches her belly as she eats, content to feel the weight of her leaning against him and the movement of their son beneath her skin. He can't get enough of the firm softness of her stomach; he strokes his hand over the steep swell of it and then down towards her pubic bone, mapping every bit of warm skin stretched taut over her womb. He could rest his hand there for hours happily, and if she doesn't want to make love to him tonight, he'll gladly curl up with her and hold her bump instead. He just wants (and needs) to be close to her. 

"Have some," Dany urges. She lifts the container up and shakes it imploringly. "Before I eat them all." 

_Eat them all,_ he wants to tell her, but he takes one instead, knowing she'll pester him until he does. He thinks about telling her how happy it always makes him to see her eating, but she knows. They’re both well aware of the scars from her last pregnancy. Sometimes, with how insistent Lyaella is as she piles food on Dany’s plate, he thinks she might instinctively know, too. Maybe she remembers that the time she spent inside her mother was half-starved. He hopes not, though.

They enjoy the cool night air and the periodic shadows of the dragons flying in front of the moon. Jon continues holding Dany’s belly as they eat, pausing every now and then to touch over the brief bulges he sees from some of Aemon's fiercer kicks and movements, his smile lighting his face. His affection for Dany grows by the second until he's nearly choking with it; he can’t help but let his fingers wander to stroke the sides of her heavy breasts every few minutes, or the soft skin of her thighs, or the edges of her smallclothes. She relaxes against him and shows no interest in protesting his wandering hand. When he pulls and tugs at her smallclothes, she braces her hands against his thighs and lifts her hips just enough for him to tug them down. She kicks them all the way off; the jade-colored silk glows in the moonlight.

“Don’t let me forget to get those,” she warns him. “Arya will be scandalized.”

“I doubt that,” he dismisses, only half his focus on their conversation. He undoes the tie of her dressing gown and lets it fall completely open. The white silk slides so smoothly over the taut skin of her stomach that it reminds him of rivulets of moonlit water. “She’s walked in on worse before.”

He’s so happy to have her bare for him that he’s nearly seized by his affection. He trails slow kisses along her shoulder and neck, though what he wants most of all is to turn her around to face him so he can taste her breasts and bury himself between her legs. He wants her to keep eating her mint cakes, though, and so he breathes through his affection and forces himself to take things slow. He strokes the insides of her thighs with his fingertips, coming close to the core of her and then slowly moving away. She lazes in his teasing affections for a spell, the slight squirming of her hips the only indication of her impatience. When he finally touches her, she lets out a breathy sigh. He loves the way she sinks against him; he had thought she was entirely relaxed before, but that’s nothing to how she leans into him as he strokes between her legs. His touches are strategic; he knows where she likes to be touched best, and he pauses after a few soft caresses, waiting…

Her hand grasps his and guides it back against her heat. He lowers his face and hides his smile into her hair. His own growing arousal is no secret, either, and Dany tugs halfheartedly at the waist of his breeches as he touches her, weak with pleasure but insistent nonetheless.

“Take me to bed.”

It’s his favorite order from his queen. He’d be happy to hear it ten times a day.

“I plan to,” he murmurs. He kisses her temple and spreads her legs wider, draping her right leg over his right and her left over his left. He watches her eyelids flutter shut as he sinks two fingers into her. She exhales, the sound tilting close to a moan near the end, and he can’t help but smile at the sound. She reaches up for him without looking, her fingers touching his beard first and then traveling to press over his smile. He kisses her fingers. “We’re in no hurry. Eat your cakes.”

He works her body carefully, paying close attention to each hitch and each squirm and each tightening around his fingers. As he does, he admires her body: white satin gown loose and open, moonlight glowing against her skin, body full with love and life— life they created— their son— _his_ son—

“Jon,” she murmurs. She’s writhing against him now, and each movement against his groin sends pleasure bolting to his knees. He’s so involved in her body that he only half-hears the sudden sound of rapid knocking at the chamber doors, but then it grows louder and more panicked— the urgency of it jolts through them. Dany reaches down and grasps his arm, stilling him.

“Wait,” she orders. Her voice is tight. “Is that our door or Lyaella’s?”

“Jon! Dany!” Arya. It has to be theirs. “Open the bloody door!”

Jon throws his head back and groans. He’s swearing beneath his breath as Dany tightens her grip on his arm and tugs once; he reluctantly pulls his fingers from her. Her consoling kiss to his palm does little to fetter his frustration, and he can see the same irritation deep in her own eyes.

“I’ll help you up,” he says gruffly.

He’s still hard and trapped in his breeches, but there’s nothing to be done about it now. He stands and holds his hands out for Dany. She takes them, and he helps pull her to her feet. She wraps her dressing gown back around her body and ties it securely. As she does, Jon gets an urge to seize her in his arms and rip it open once more— to ease her onto the edge of the bench and push her knees open and—

“I’ll see what she needs. It better be important.” She looks incredibly displeased, and Jon can’t blame her. She steps closer to him and reaches out to tug at his breeches; he feels his throbbing increase just from that one touch, and the back of his neck grows hot. For a moment, all he can think about is how pinching the confines of his breeches have become. “I’ll be back.”

Jon initially plans to sit out here until Dany figures out what Arya needs, and then, once she’s returned, resuming where they left off. But when an unfamiliar man’s voice breaks through the silence, he turns towards the balcony door at once. He’s inside the bedchambers and at Dany’s side in an instant, his eyes chained on the strange man. He’s clearly a prisoner of some sort: Arya has Needle held to his throat, but Jon can’t understand why she’s brought him _here_ to their bedchambers. His confusion and uneasiness dampen his arousal in record time, and as he looks down at Daenerys, her expression tells him she’s as sobered up as he is.

“What is going on?” Jon demands.

The stranger is the one who attempts to answer. “I was—”

“Shut up,” Arya tells the man angrily. She has Needle pressed beneath his chin. Gendry is standing at her side, though he’s in his dressing gown and clearly still half-asleep and terribly confused. Arya meets Jon’s eyes. “This man climbed through my fucking window!”

“ _What_?!” Jon snarls. His frustration bleeds into his rage; soon, he’s turning his eyes towards the trunk Longclaw is locked in.

“My mistake,” the man says smoothly. He could almost sound cheerful. “I assumed your wing was Daenerys’s. I was clearly wrong. Hello, Daenerys. I had no idea you were with child.” There’s a short pause. When Jon’s eyes snap back at the man, he’s infuriated to see his eyes dancing down his wife’s frame, from her still-flushed cheeks to her hardened nipples prominent against the white silk of her dressing gown. Jon reaches out and pulls her into his side without thinking, and that only seems to amuse the man further. “You look ravishing, though I’m sure you’re aware of that.”

Daenerys wraps an arm around Jon’s waist. She’s entirely calm. “Yes, I am aware of that. Hello, Daario. Shall I assume you’ve lost all ability to comprehend my orders or shall I punish you for treason?”

“It depends on the punishment.”

Dany fails to so much as smile at his quip, but he doesn’t look concerned in the slightest. In fact, he appears entirely unruffled. Jon’s jaw tenses as he studies Daario. He takes in his appearance— relatively attractive even if it’s unkempt, likely due to his travels— and he finds himself seething. Knowing it’s Daario should make things better— it’s not some crazy assassin trying to harm Arya or Dany, after all— but instead, it makes things worse. Jon hadn’t realized they _could_ get worse, but suddenly he’s so furious his hands clench into tight, unyielding fists. All he can think about are the things he doesn’t _want_ to think about. Namely, the fact that this man had once shared Dany’s bed, had once had her writhing against him as Jon had moments prior, had once—

 _No,_ Jon snaps. He won't think about that.

Arya scowls, though she lowers Needle. “So you _do_ know him? He kept insisting that you did. _This_ is Daario?” There’s a short pause as Arya appraises him. “I thought he’d be younger.” 

Daario laughs at that. He winks at Daenerys. “You’ve been telling good tales of me, I see.” He looks between Jon and Dany, his eyes dancing slowly down her once more. “I get the feeling I interrupted something. My apologies, Your Grace.”

Daenerys crosses her arms over her breasts, but that’s the only sign of her discomfort. She regards him coolly. Jon is not so unaffected: his anger wells up in his chest, but he presses his teeth together and suppresses the urge to react. Instead, he pulls his cloak off himself and twists to face Dany. He drapes it over her shoulders, but whether that’s to make himself feel better or her, he’s not certain. She wraps the ruby-colored fabric around herself either way.

“Who’s the little swordswoman?” Daario continues, jerking his head Arya’s way.

“She’s not little,” Gendry defends, annoyed. “She had you disarmed before I even knew you were in our chambers.”

Daenerys and Arya share a long look. Jon’s not certain what is being communicated, but they don’t look pleased.

“Arya, this is Daario. Daario, this is Arya. My sister,” Daenerys introduces flatly.

“Yes, I had the pleasure of meeting her. Her lover speaks truly: she’s an impressive fighter. She disarmed me before I even climbed fully into the room,” Daario says. Jon feels a thrill of fury shoot through him as his dark eyes suddenly lock with Jon’s. “King Jon, I presume.” His eyes flash to Daenerys; his lips quirk up. “And the king's chivalrous cloak. Though that’s a bit too little, too late, wouldn’t you say so?”

Jon clenches his fists to the point of pain. Before he can say a word, Dany beats him to it.

“All right, I’m done with him, Arya,” she says evenly. She turns so her back is to Daario. “Take him and his foul mouth elsewhere. I’ve got things to get back to.”

Arya pushes Needle into Daario’s neck without delay, urging him towards the door, but he utterly ignores her. His sparkling eyes are chained on Dany’s back, and the corners of his mouth are still quirked up.

“Whatever we interrupted, I assume. Though it can’t have been much of anything with how quiet it was in here. You used to scream so loudly with me that Missandei would worry for you, as I recall.”

It’s Gendry who reacts to that first. He spins to face Daario and points furiously at him, his shoulders tense and face dark.

“Watch your tongue!” he booms. “That’s the queen and you’ll speak to her as such! You’re lucky Arya didn’t take your head for trespassing as you did!”

Jon wants nothing more than to close his fist around Daario’s neck for his lewd comments. But he forces himself not to react that way. _He wants that. He wants you to rise to his bait. Don’t do it. He’s nothing. He’s not Daenerys’s husband. He’s not blood of the dragon. He’s not the king. He’s not the father of her children. He’s not a threat. He’s not a threat._

_But what is he doing here?_

“The queen gave you specific orders,” Jon says. His voice is cold and hard as ice. “She instructed you to stay in Essos.”

“Yeah,” Daario says. He stretches his arms above his head, entirely unperturbed. “I didn’t listen.”

Dany spins back around. Her eyes flash; it’s the first time her anger has shown on her face.

“You should have. You coming here without leave was inappropriate enough, but attempting to sneak into my bedchambers—”

“You liked it well enough the last time.”

Jon feels a fierce burning in his palms. He doesn’t have to look down to know he’s clenched his fists so tightly his nails have torn into his skin. He can’t do anything for it: it’s that or punch Daario, and he’s afraid to do that. He doesn’t know if Dany will try to stop him, and he can’t risk accidentally knocking into her or somehow harming her if she gets into the mix. He can’t risk it.

Dany’s fury only grows. She seems likely to punch Daario herself. But she appears to decide what Jon decided, and she takes a breath and masters it. She walks back over towards them, and every step that brings her closer to Daario makes tension wind tighter in Jon’s chest and his nails tear further into his palms. When she speaks, it’s with such measured frustration that she could easily be talking to a child throwing a tantrum.

“Daario. This _isn’t_ the last time. I told you when I left— that was it. I’m married now, and you shouldn’t have come. Whatever it is that you need to talk about could’ve been discussed through ravens.”

Daario steps closer to her. And all Jon’s sanity leaves him the _instant_ Daario’s hand extends towards Daenerys. He’s not even sure where he’s trying to touch her, but the thought of his hand anywhere on her makes something slip in Jon’s mind. It’s quiet as the grave in his head: one moment he’s watching Daario’s hand move towards Daenerys ( _towards her stomach_ , he thinks) almost in slow-motion, and the next Daario’s staggering back, his head thrown back from the force of a hard punch. It’s only the stinging in Jon’s knuckles and the echoing in his ears that let him know he’s the one who punched him. He can feel his pulse pounding in his temples.

“Do _not_ touch her! Don’t you _ever touch her!_ ”

It’s loud. Too loud. But he can’t stop it.

“Jon—”

“YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO DISOBEY HER WISHES— NO RIGHT TO SNEAK INTO MY LITTLE SISTER’S CHAMBERS— NO RIGHT TO LOOK AT AND SPEAK WITH THE QUEEN THE WAY THAT YOU ARE— NO RIGHT TO TOUCH HER WITHOUT HER LEAVE—”

“ _Jon_!”

He ignores Arya, but another voice tears through his hysteria as easily as Longclaw tears through flesh.

“Daddy?”

Every adult in the room softens. They turn towards the doorway, all previous conflicts forgotten at the sound of Lyaella’s little voice. Jon feels his heart stutter with concern at the sight of his daughter. She’s rubbing her blanket worriedly against her cheek, her grey eyes wide and frightened. Jon’s heart pounds so hard he can hardly breathe as he darts over and quickly scoops her up into his arms. He doesn’t want her anywhere near this man, either.

“What’s wrong?” Lyaella asks. She wraps her arms tightly around Jon’s neck. “Mamma?”

“Everything’s all right, sweetling,” Daenerys assures her. She sounds very convincing: all the anger has evaporated from her tone entirely. “Come here to me. Both of you.”

Jon carries Lyaella over and stands at Dany’s side. She kisses Lyaella’s cheek and grips Jon’s forearm tightly. At her touch, his entire body shudders to a stop. He turns to look at her, and it’s only when he sees the violet of her eyes that he realizes his chest is heaving. Her eyes are soft. She speaks without saying a word. _Let me handle it. It’s okay_.

But it’s not. It’s not. He doesn’t know this man. He doesn’t. He can’t touch his wife. He can’t. He can’t. He can’t—

_It’s stopped storming. It’s stopped. It’s stopped._

Daenerys observes Daario, and Daario observes her. Nobody says anything. Finally, Dany turns to Arya.

“Arya, take him to the council chambers, and wake Tyrion, Ser Davos, Grey Worm, and Sansa.” She looks at Daario. “If your news is so important that you had to sneak into my bedchambers, it’s important enough to discuss immediately with our entire small council. For your sake, at least, it better be.”

Daario remains untroubled. “We could speak here and now. The princess won’t mind, will you?”

He smiles at Lyaella, and it grows quiet in Jon’s mind again. Like the calm after a storm. Arya steps in before he lashes out.

“Don’t talk to the princess."

Daenerys remains firm. “I won’t be holding council meetings in my bedchambers. We will meet in the council room.”

“As you wish, my queen.” He steps back, following the persuasive pressure of Needle against his back, but then he looks back at them. “Oh, and King Jon? You should consider increasing the security of your castle. It was so easy to sneak into the main structure that I took a break in the kitchens for some wine.”

“Get out,” Arya snarls at Daario. “Out before he kills you. I’ll let him.”

Daario's deep laugh echoes down the corridor as Arya escorts him from Rhaella's Fortress. Gendry hesitates in the room after Arya and Daario have left.

“Are you all right?” he asks Jon. He looks from Jon to Daenerys; Jon grows uncertain who it is he’s checking on. He wonders then, with a sickness that sinks his stomach to his toes, if he’s afraid Jon, in his rage, is a threat to _Dany_. Or Lyaella. _He can’t think that. He can’t. I wasn’t that angry. I could never be that angry._

If Gendry does fear that, Dany doesn’t share that fear. She walks over to Jon and leans against him, her body relaxed and at ease.

“We’re fine,” she assures Gendry. “Go make sure Arya doesn’t kill Daario on the way to the council room.”

“I’ll do my best,” he mutters. “She’s pretty furious, though…”

 _As she should be,_ Jon thinks. He hardly feels his wife’s embrace after Gendry leaves; he’s too locked into his rage.

“Who is that, Mamma?” Lyaella asks sleepily. She lifts her face from Jon’s neck. “Awa doesn’t like him.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Dany agrees. “He’s from Essos. He’s...an old friend. Come, my dear heart. Let’s go back to bed. You look exhausted.”

She can’t carry Lyaella anymore— not without growing lightheaded and hurting her back— and Lyaella knows that, but she still reaches for her in her exhaustion. Dany takes her little hand and kisses it.

“Your father will carry you to bed. I can’t anymore, not with Aemon.”

“Okay, Mamma. I hold your hand,” Lyaella says, her words slurring together. She keeps hold of Dany’s hand and lays her head against Jon’s shoulder as he carries her back to bed. Once in her bedchambers, Dany curls on her side and Lyaella slides down to hug her stomach—her typical sleeping position these days— and Jon looks at them and waits for their presence to soften his heart. But he feels numbed by his rage.

“I want my song,” Lyaella whispers. Jon doesn’t process that request until Dany gently nudges his thigh. He reclines beside them and begins singing, but he hardly processes a word of it.

Once Lyaella is sleeping, Jon and Dany tiptoe back into their own bedchambers. Jon’s composure ruptures the second Lyaella’s door clicks shut.

“He can’t just sneak into our castle! You told him not to come— he’s left his post in Essos— he can’t just break into my sister’s bedchambers—!”

His words are drowned by a sudden kiss. Dany’s lips are warm and soft, but her kiss is firm. Jon’s so worked up that he hardly feels it.

“He shouldn’t have, you’re right. He doesn’t abide by boundaries. He never has. But he’s not a threat to me or to Aemon.”

Jon can’t believe that. He doesn’t know this man, and he doesn’t want him anywhere near his family. Dany might’ve known him before, but that was _before:_ there’s no telling how time has changed him. He could be violent now, evil…he could hurt her. There are so many ways people can hurt other people. Especially in states as delicate as Dany’s. _What if he tries to hurt our child out of jealousy? What if he hurts Lyaella? What if Dany…_

He stops. He has to. He can’t bear the thought. He’s been wrestling with possessiveness for a while now, but this has roused true paranoia for the first time. He can’t make sense of the enormity of that emotion. His heart is racing, and he’s afraid…suddenly, all he can remember are the things hidden in that terrible place in his mind, that graveyard…Bloodraven’s fingers digging into Dany’s stomach, her hair tangled around his fingers, her cries of pain, her palms sliced in two—

He’s pulled back to reality by the feeling of his wife’s soft hand working inside his breeches. Her skin is like fire, and when she takes him in hand, he feels pleasure knot low in his gut. Her lips press to his collarbone.

“Stop. It’s okay. It’s all right,” she soothes. “I’m not letting him spoil our time, and you shouldn’t, either. He’s bawdy and stupid; it matters not. This matters…just this.”

He’s inclined to agree with her. Her touch is very persuasive. He bows his head and rests his forehead against her shoulder, inhaling the intermingled sweetness of her skin and hair. When her fingers begin undoing the laces of his breeches, he reaches down and softly catches her hand in his.

“Aren’t we meeting them in the council room?”

“We are. After.” She kisses the crown of his head and gently pries her hand from his stilling grasp. She tugs his breeches down, and he inhales sharply as she grips him again. Her touch is well-practiced and knee-weakening, but her words are the most effective of all.

“You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever known,” she murmurs.

The way she looks at him— the way she touches him— he believes it.

“Fitting, then,” he manages. He groans into her skin, and as she begins easing him back towards the bed, he’s happy to oblige. “Because you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“We were made for each other. We were. That’s what matters. That’s all.”

Any anger, frustration, or jealousy he might’ve felt abandons the sinking ship of his mind at once. He’s happy to drown.

IX.

His relief is frustratingly short-lived. After his wife has pulled him apart, she declines his attempts to do the same for her. Her hand pushes gently at his curls, easing his face from between her legs. He’s startled by it. On a list of things he knows for certain he’s talented at, this is one of them.

“We can make time,” he refutes, assuming that’s why she’s refused him. “If we had time for me, we’ve got time for you. If you don’t want this, just tell me what you _do_ want—”

“It’s not an issue of me not wanting it,” she interrupts. She pulls through his curls, her eyes deep and soft with affection. She takes their already-intwined hands and brings them to her center; he feels a bolt of arousal race from his groin to his toes at the wetness that graces his fingers. “Leave me something to look forward to.”

He pulls her hand up to his lips. She flushes from cheek to breast as he kisses her damp fingers.

“Letting me tend to you now doesn’t mean I can’t do the same later.” He means it deeply; he’s got desire packed down to his bones.

“No, it doesn’t,” she agrees. Her eyes are bright. “But I want you to know during our meeting, no matter how the conversation goes, that I’m sitting there like _this_ thinking about _you_.”

He can’t help but groan. He knows, in some ways, she’s coddling him and his jealousy. And he doesn’t give a fuck.

“Let him say what he wants. He’s not the one I’m going to have before the night is over,” she says firmly. And what is there to say back to that but _kessa, ñuha dāria?_

She pulls her dress back on, and he laces the back of it for her, but all he wants to do is tug it back down to her ankles. He goes onto the balcony and retrieves her smallclothes, but when he tries to pass them to her, she shakes her head. He swallows.

“Dany,” he warns. He closes his hand around the jade silk and loops his arm around her waist, tugging her against him gently. Her stomach keeps her from being as close as he’d like. “I don’t think this is going to help me sit patiently through the meeting.”

She blinks up at him. She paints her expression with such innocence that he briefly doubts her naughty intentions.

“It will. And you will. Because that’s the only thing that’ll get us back to this room.” She kisses him softly— so softly his lips chase hers afterwards, seeking more. “You can keep them if you’d like.”

She’s laughing as he crushes his lips to hers, his own curled up in a smile. He tightens his arm around her waist. He can feel their son moving from where her stomach is pressed to his, and that only makes him kiss her harder.

“I love you.” It’s so gruff it’s nearly a growl.

“I love you, too,” she murmurs. She touches his cheek, and then she traces her forefinger over the scar above his eye. “Let’s go see what reasons brought Daario to our door so we can be done with it.”

Ezhi and Red Fly come to sit in the solar to listen out for Lyaella in their absence. Jon starts to apologize to them for the late hour, but they’re chatting so animatedly that he doubts they even realize it’s the middle of the night. They’re surprisingly chipper, and they are the only ones. No one in the council room seems happy to be awake. Ser Davos, in particular, is glowering steadily at Daario. Jon feels a sting of affection for him because of it.

“Still,” Tyrion is saying, his tone close to a scold. “You should have followed our queen’s orders.”

“Daario Naharis follows his own gut. And I felt I needed to be here,” he says.

 _Daario Naharis can follow the first ship out of here,_ Jon thinks sourly. _He can go back to Essos and find a wife of his own age and mediocrity._ But Dany brushes against his side and pulls his hand over to rest atop her belly, and he’s soon thinking only of his family. He moves his hand away only to help her sit, and once he’s sitting beside her, he rests his hand back where she’d placed it, comforted by the soft warmth of her body and the occasional nudges from their son. _Our son,_ he thinks. _Ours. He’s safe, and Lyaella is safe, and Dany is safe. Arya is back. Everything is fine. Everything is wonderful. It’s not storming._

Such small things set his anxiety off these days. He’s never been more aware of that fact than he is right then. He half-listens to the bickering going on at the council table. Davos and Arya tear into Daario, and Tyrion half-heartedly attempts to defend him to some degree, silenced only when Sansa whispers something to him that makes him reconsider his stance. Grey Worm murmurs to Dany so quietly that even Jon, on Dany’s other side, can’t make out what he’s saying. Daenerys is the one who brings an end to the arguing.

“What’s been done has been done. It will never happen again. Look at me so I know you understand that, Daario.”

“Gladly, Your Grace,” Daario says, his eyes landing on Dany. “How long do you wish for my gaze?”

“It matters not— I’m sure I’ll have it most of the conversation no matter what length I request. Tell me what urgent matter has brought you here, and for your sake, I hope it’s something so complex even Tyrion can’t make sense of it. You’ve pulled me from my bed in the middle of the night, and in case you’ve failed to notice, I am hugely pregnant and very cross.”

“And both things look lovely on you,” he responds smoothly. “Does your King Jon tell you that all the time? He should. Does he?”

Arya slams her fist down on the table, incredulous. “You really want my brother to hurt you, don’t you?”

Daario locks eyes with Jon. His grin fills Jon with a resurgence of rage. “He won’t do that. You were a lord once, weren’t you? Highborn. A rule follower. Do you treat Daenerys Stormborn the way she deserves?”

Jon’s pulse is audible in his ears. “Let’s see,” he says, his tone dark. “She left you, she married me, and she’s carrying my son…I’d say she favors the way I treat her.”

“Politics,” Daario says evenly. He waves his hand as if he’s brushing away Jon’s words. The fact that his jaw is still swollen from Jon's earlier punch seems to matter little to him. “All politics. Targaryens have been marrying Targaryens out of duty for ages. I’ve done my studying.”

“You can read?” Arya asks, feigning shock. 

“Arya,” Sansa hisses.

“What? I'm meant to be polite to him? He snuck into my bedchambers, what could possibly be ruder than _that?"_

"It's still not productive."

"What about this _is_ productive?! As far as I can tell, we came here in the middle of the night to watch them measure their cocks. I’m tired and I want to go back to sleep. Why are you here, Daario Naharis?”

“Two reasons. I believe the first is obvious. And the second has to do with your Lord of Light.” His eyes flash to Jon.

“ _My_ Lord of Light?” Jon repeats flatly.

“I spoke with many people when I first arrived in King’s Landing. The word is that you’re a follower of the Red God, and you won’t let the queen receive some special blessing from the Faith of the Seven because of it. They’re not pleased with that.”

Jon feels Dany’s hand grip his thigh. He exchanges a troubled look with her.

“That’s not the truth,” Dany says. “ _I_ refuse the blessing as much as he does.”

Daario lifts his shoulders. “That’s simply what I heard. And it brings me to my next concern. Do you know what the priestesses are doing in Essos? Everywhere in Essos.”

Jon doesn’t. He feels both Hands’ eyes weighing on them. They’ve been warning them for weeks that they must concede to this blessing if they want to appease the High Septon and his followers, but Jon has been adamantly against it. Possibly more than the queen. That part might be true.

“Your Grace—”

“No,” Jon interrupts Ser Davos firmly. “We’ve spoken on the matter.”

He feels as certain of it now as he felt the first time the proposition was brought to them. He will not allow a stranger in the birthing room with his wife. He doesn’t care what that makes him. If it makes him as paranoid and controlling as Aerys, so be it. So be it. She died once bringing their child into this world; he won’t let anything threaten her safety this go-round. And he doesn’t trust the High Septon. He doesn’t trust his Faith, his followers.Allowing the High Septon to be with them when Dany — and Aemon— are at their most vulnerable seems stupid and foolish. And allowing their son to be blessed by some god other than R’hllor feels traitorous. It’s only through R’hllor that their son exists, that their daughter exists, that _they_ exist.

“What else were they saying about the king and the Red God?” Lord Tyrion questions.

Daario seems largely uninterested in the topic. He shrugs his shoulders again and reclines in the chair, lifting his feet up to prop his heels on the edge of the table. Arya whacks his calves with Needle; he lowers his feet back to the floor. He looks at Arya with something close to surprise. 

“Don’t put your feet on the furniture. This isn’t your home.” _This is my brother’s home._ Jon hears the words even if she doesn’t say them, and his sister’s loyalty chips away at the anger encasing his heart.

“What is happening in Essos, Daario?” Daenerys asks. “Last we heard, the priestesses in Braavos were preaching that Lyaella was sent to bring salvation. The priestesses in Volantis were preaching that Jon and I are the prince and princess that were promised and that we’re changing our current hell into a promised heaven. And I believe there are a few priestesses in Norvos who think _I_ am R’hllor.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that,” Daario says, amused. “You should see the interesting spin they’ve taken with that one in the brothels.” He pauses for a moment like he expects someone to ask him for more details on that, but no one does. He continues. “Who they believe is or isn’t their savior is largely irrelevant. What they’re doing in the name of that savior is the problem. They’re sacrificing people. Which, in many ways, is what they’ve always done. But your Westerosi people might take offense to this once news of it spreads, and it will. You’ve taught them all how to read and how to write, and there’s communication now between all types of people across both continents. You can’t hide anything anymore.”

Lord Tyrion drags his hands through his hair, frustrated. He looks at Ser Davos. “This is exactly what I was worried about. Once the High Septon gets word of this he’ll have what he needs to start turning people against His Grace and Her Grace—”

“Didn’t you two make a statement to followers of the Lord of Light stating that human sacrifices were forbidden?” Sansa asks. “If they really believe you two are somehow their saviors, they’re terrible at listening.”

They had— of sorts. They shared semi-regular correspondence with Kinvara, the only one who truly knew of their relationship with R’hllor, and they’d expressed to her that nothing he had ever said to them was in line with something like human sacrifice. _He said himself that the priestesses often get it wrong,_ Jon had written. _This is one way they get it wrong, and it must stop._

But either Kinvara had failed to spread that message to other priestesses or they didn’t believe her. No matter what, Tyrion is likely right: this is going to cause further issues for them if the people of Westeros become aware of it.

“I fail to see why this had to be delivered in person,” Daenerys says. “You could have written that easily. It doesn’t require pages and pages of explanation as you insisted it would.”

“No. The pages and pages would’ve been for the other reason I came.”

“A pity you came all this way, then. I could’ve saved you the trouble.”

Daario looks affected for the first time, but it lasts only a moment.

“It would be best for us to speak in private,” Daario suggests. “Are friends not allowed that?”

“We have never been friends,” Dany counters. “We will talk here in front of my small council, or we will not speak at all.”

This twists Daario’s expression for a second time, but not into a look of sadness. Rather, it’s the look of someone realizing the challenge they’re facing is much more daunting than they anticipated it’d be.

Daenerys leans forward as much as she can, which isn’t much at all: the edge of the table presses into her stomach after only a slight incline.

“Listen to me now and listen carefully. I love my husband. I didn’t choose him for political reasons. I chose him out of love. I don’t want another man. I don’t need another man. If I wanted you, I’d have you. And I don’t. If you don’t want to be sent back to Essos at the first light of dawn, I suggest you let go of whatever romantic inclinations you’re harboring and move on.”

Daario observes her. Jon reaches into Dany’s lap and sets his hand on her thigh, rubbing absently as he waits to see what Daario might respond with.

“You don’t want me at all? In any way?” he sounds curious more than wounded. “The only thrill worth chasing is the company of a woman who desires you. And you don’t?”

“No. I don’t. I’m married. I love being married. I love being with Jon. I enjoyed our time together, Daario— you know that I did. But that time is over. I’m different now.”

“Yes. You’re a mother,” Daario says.

“I’ve been a mother all the time you’ve known me. I’m not refusing you because of that. Don’t assume my denial is born from anything but honest disinterest.”

It’s frank and honest. Everyone at the table watches Daario to see how he’ll take that rejection. Jon is afraid he’ll react angrily or aggressively. He’s glad for the table spanning between Daario and Dany, and he’s already planning how quickly he can grab Needle from Arya and plunge it through Daario’s throat should he so much as raise a hand to Dany.

But Daario doesn’t respond that way. He merely considers Dany’s words, and then he nods.

“Ah well,” he sighs. “I was lucky it lasted as long as it did. I was lucky to have you at all. But I was right, you know. No one can follow Daenerys Targaryen.”

The table seems to collectively relax. Dany was the only one who wasn’t worried.

“You haven’t met every woman out there. Maybe you’ll meet a Westerosi woman who will surprise you.”

Jon knows it’s impossible he’ll find a woman who comes close to Dany’s radiance, and Daario clearly knows that, too. For the first time, the two of them share a look that’s neighboring on agreement.

“I can’t change your mind, I suppose.”

Dany covers Jon’s hand with her own. She drags it up her thigh and presses it to the underside of her belly. He bites back a smile at the strong nudge he feels. He narrowly suppresses the urge to lean over and kiss the top of her stomach.

“Don’t even bother trying,” Daenerys affirms. Her next words are close to a threat. “I mean that. My patience is thin as of late.”

“And that’s different from the days that came before it?” Daario asks. He looks at Tyrion and Grey Worm, his eyebrows raised. Tyrion attempts to mask his snort by turning into a cough, but Jon doubts anyone falls for it. Dany and Grey Worm ignore his comment entirely.

“Well,” Dany says. She pushes her chair back and grasps onto the edge of the table to pull herself up. “If that’s all, I’ve got something to get back to.”

Ser Davos protests. “Your Grace, shouldn’t we discuss the Faith? And what to do about the priestesses?”

“Later, Ser Davos,” she assures him. “I need my rest.”

He relents at that statement. Truly, Jon and Dany have little intention of resting in the immediate future, but that is information for them only. That belongs in their own kingdom within a kingdom— their world together. _The best world,_ Jon thinks, his hand curling around Dany’s. _The best world and the best girl._

X.

“ _Gods_ ,” Jon gasps, the word followed quickly by a low moan. Daenerys feels his hands tighten at her hips, his nails pressing into her skin. When she looks down at him— at his head thrown back on the pillow, his lips parted in pleasure, his eyes squeezed shut— the sight of him makes her pulse race so quickly she feels as if the throbbing between her legs has consumed her entire body. She rides him faster, her heart high in her chest, her pleasure building quickly.

“Dany…Dany, yes…” her eyes flutter shut at that, the sound of her name at the beginning and end of each moan so affecting that she finds herself quivering around him. He must feel it too; he grips her hips even tighter, guiding her quickening movements, his words effusive and breathless. “Seven _hells_ , you feel so good.”

He’s more talkative than he usually is, and it floods Dany’s body with so much arousal she finds herself unable to fuck him hard enough. She leans back and presses her palms to his thighs for purchase, but her legs are trembling, and her pulse is thrumming frantically in her ears. She’s brimming with pleasure so great she can hear herself breathing in gasping moans, but it’s nothing close to what she can feel herself approaching— if she could only move faster—

She sucks in a startled breath as her head suddenly spins. She’s flipped over so quickly and gently that it takes her a second to process the change in position, but she processes the emptiness within her nearly immediately. She whines in protest, so far gone that no words can articulate how upset she is to find Jon no longer inside of her. She seeks his eyes, but she doesn’t have the chance to catch them; he slides off the bed, trembling and flushed, and when he grasps her calves and yanks her to the edge of the mattress, she feels like her heart is pounding between her thighs. Jon leans over her and crushes his mouth to hers, kissing her deeply as he shoves her thighs apart, opening her so wide that her groin aches. She writhes…and waits…she’s trembling with want, and he’s murmuring things against her mouth, sweet things…( _I love you, I love being inside you— nothing feels better— your body was made for mine— you're mine, not his— he can’t love you like I can, nobody loves anyone like I love you— he can’t fuck you like I can, blood of my blood, no one knows you like I know you, no one knows…—)_

They both cry out as he sinks back into her. He quickly finds the tempo she needed so desperately before, and she throws her head back, her body bowing and arching up, maddened and ablaze. Her world becomes darkness, and when she feels his hand slip between them to touch her, the sensations consuming her begin to peak. She moans— gasps— screams. He comes to a sudden stop and hurriedly pulls his hand up and presses it to her mouth, stifling her before she wakes their daughter. He’s breathless as he looks down at her, his eyes desire-soaked storm clouds, his breath falling quick and heavy from his lips.

“Not so loud,” he reminds her.

Her heart is slamming into her ribcage, and she feels she might burst; she struggles to reach forward and grab his hips, to pull him deeper into her and urge him on, but her stomach keeps her from reaching him. He knows what she wants despite. He leans over her, his hands pressing the mattress on either side of her face, and the pace he sets after that has her murmuring affirmations in Dothraki, Valyrian, the Common Tongue…she loses sight of her volume at a certain point, and he pauses to move his hand back to her mouth. His palm is salty against her parted lips, but he dare not move it: for as talkative as he’d been at the start, she’s thrice that now, though there’s nothing of much substance coming from her lips as he makes love to her.

 _I made you scream,_ Daario had said, and that was true. But what Jon is doing now is so good she _can’t_ scream; she parts her lips underneath his hand to do so, but nothing comes out. She’s paralyzed with pleasure. She’s arching up beneath him, her building cries muffled against his palm, her body quaking—

The sound of a door clicking open rips through her mind. _No,_ she thinks desperately, _no._ _Maybe I imagined it…maybe I heard something from outside…_

She hadn’t.

“Mamma? _Fawder_?”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Jon gasps. Dany makes an involuntary sound of protest as he abruptly pulls from her— something between a whine and a yelp— and Jon collapses beside her on the mattress. Dany lies there in dismayed silence, her lower half throbbing so intently the ache is torturous, unable to react to the problem at hand as quickly as she knows she should. Thankfully, Jon acts without hesitation: his hands fumble blindly for the coverlet, dragging it over their naked forms with a quivering hand. Dany musters the courage to peek around him towards the door to Lyaella’s bedchambers. She sees what she feared: their daughter standing in the doorway sleepily. _Damn._

“What’s wrong, Lyaella?” Daenerys hears herself say. Her voice sounds as off-tempo as her pulse. She sucks in a few deep breaths, trying to steady herself. She scoots closer to Jon and rests her cheek against his chest. “Are you okay?”

Jon’s heart is pounding so hard that Daenerys can feel every single brutal thrum. He’s frozen, visibly horrified, his chest heaving in the darkness. He covers his face with his hands.

“Did she see?” he mumbles. He sounds deeply distressed. Strangely— though it’s not funny at all— it nearly makes Dany laugh. How blessed is their daughter that the worst thing she might encounter is her parents making love.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. She’s still half-asleep,” she whispers back. The lack of light ups the odds that she hasn’t seen anything; Daenerys can only just make out Lyaella’s short figure, and she prays Lyaella can’t see them with any more clarity than they can see her.

“Mamma,” Lyaella sniffles. Dany can tell she’s upset about something, and her fear is about as effective at dampening the mood as a dousing of cold water. She hears Lyaella’s approaching footsteps and has no choice but to slide out from beneath the covers, knowing Lyaella will try to climb up onto the bed if she doesn’t. Daenerys stands and shivers in the cool night air; she quickly grabs her dressing gown and wraps it around her body. Lyaella reaches her right as she’s tying it. She holds her arms up sleepily, and Daenerys frowns.

“I can’t lift you,” she reminds her gently. She takes her hand instead. “Let’s go back to bed.”

Lyaella’s eyes well with tears.

“Please, Mamma, I want you to hold me! I want you hold me!”

She pulls her hand from Dany’s and reaches out to her, and when Daenerys fails to hoist her up yet again, she begins crying. Dany’s heart twists with guilt; she can’t bear the sight of her daughter’s tears. If she thought she could lift her up and hold her without risking hurting them both, she would without hesitation. But the last time she’d tried to carry her— two weeks ago now— she’d become so lightheaded she nearly fell. She would’ve hurt Lyaella and maybe Aemon if she had, and she _had_ hurt herself: she hurt her back enough to render her bed-bound for a day, and the experience had frightened her enough to deter her from lifting Lyaella up the rest of the pregnancy. That decision is proving harder than ever tonight. But just because she can’t lift her doesn’t mean she can’t comfort her. She backs up a few steps until she’s close enough to the small table by the fireplace to grasp onto the edge. She holds onto it and eases herself down carefully so that she’s eye-to-eye with Lyaella. It’s exhausting, and she knows she can’t stay here long, but it’s worth the struggle: she leans in and kisses her daughter’s tears from her sweet face, and Lyaella throws herself into her embrace so eagerly that Dany nearly topples backwards.

“What is it, sweetling? Did you have a nightmare?” Dany murmurs.

Lyaella’s arms wrap so tightly around her neck that it’s nearly choking. She clings to Dany and hides her face against her neck, her sobs leaving her in great bursts. Dany cradles her close and presses kisses to her soft curls, and soon, her sobs begin to soften and dwindle. _She just wanted to be close to me,_ Dany realizes, her heart searing with affection at the thought. _That’s all. She just wanted to be in my arms._

Jon’s voice fractures the silence.

“Will you toss me my breeches? I’ll carry her to her chambers,” he offers.

Dany turns her eyes back towards the bed. Jon’s perched on the edge now, the coverlet tangled around his hips, his feet pressed to the thick carpet. He meets her eyes. He’s frowning, as concerned as she is.

Dany shakes her head. If he picks up Lyaella, there’s little chance she’ll let go of him, and it’ll be harder for the both of them to sneak from her bed once she’s finally asleep. And she doesn’t want him back in his breeches, either: she’s been waiting all day to have him out of them. She’s confident she can get Lyaella to sleep on her own.

“No, I can settle her to bed. I’ll be right back. Keep the bed warm.” She presses a final kiss to the top of Lyaella’s head. “Let’s go lie down, Lyaella.”

Dany waits for her to beg to sleep in their bed, already coming up with a litany of reasons why she can't, but her requests are easier than that.

“I want fire,” Lyaella mumbles. She’s so tired that each word runs into the next.

“I’ll light your bedside lamp,” Daenerys offers. She reaches for the table and rises slowly. She grows momentarily lightheaded as she stands, but she tightens her grip on the table to ground herself and it soon passes. She takes Lyaella’s hand. “Come on, Ly.” 

She lies with her on her bed and rubs her back softly, talking to her about their day tomorrow and all the things they’re going to do, and by the time she reaches their plans for that coming evening, Lyaella is fast asleep. She rests against Lyaella’s pillows and forces herself to be patient; if she hurries back to Jon now, Lyaella may just wake up seconds after she tiptoes from the room. She lets Lyaella sleep over her heart for a bit, and when she’s certain that Lyaella’s in a deep enough sleep to move her, she carefully settles her onto the mattress. She tucks her blanket beside her, pulls her coverlet up over her, and lightly touches her fingertips to her forehead— just to make sure. But her skin is cool and her face untroubled. Dany lights her bedside lamp in case she wakes again, glances at Lyaella once more to ensure she’s still asleep, and then she pads quietly to the door between Lyaella’s bedchambers and her own. She eases it shut after her. Jon’s voice rolls through the dark room like a peal of thunder.

“Turn the latch.”

She feels her pulse throbbing between her thighs. She hesitates, her fingers touching the cool metal of the door latch.

“And if she wakes again?”

“Better to hear her knock or call for us from the other side of the door than have her walk in to my face between your thighs.”

Her heart feels low and heavy in her chest. She turns and meets Jon’s eyes in the dim light: his are full of fire. He reads her concerns as easily as if she’d whispered them in his ear.

“Don’t worry,” he tells her firmly. “She’s okay.” He pats the mattress. “Now come here— I’ve got time to make up for. That’s two interruptions now.”

She’s very aware of those interruptions. Her body feels heavy and throbbing, an ache she can only seem to intensify rather than ease, and for as skillful and dedicated as her king is, she’s uncertain whether whatever comes next can last as long as she’d like it to. She knows what Jon needs more than anything else is to be inside her again, and she doesn’t think either of them will last long once he finally is. Still— she’ll take every single moment she can get her hands on, and she’ll take it gladly. She just wants _him—_ whether that’s his face between her thighs or him inside of her. Any way— every way. As she turns the latch on the door, she feels single-minded with want. She drops her dressing gown to the floor and climbs back onto the soft sheets, her pulse hammering in her veins with anticipation. Jon wastes no time: within seconds of sliding over to him, before she can climb astride him as she’d planned, he moves to lay between her legs. He kisses the underside of her stomach before all else. Daenerys threads her fingers in his hair, her heart swelling. _I love him,_ she thinks, her fingers pulling gently at his curls. It’s not the first time she’s thought it tonight and she knows it won’t be the last.

She’s expecting a brief moment of pleasure beneath his mouth— enough to get her squirming before he sinks back into her— but she severely underestimates his determination. He toys with her for what feels like ages before he even brings his face to her. He runs his nails lightly along her inner thighs, he spreads her legs open as far as they’ll go so he can stroke the inner creases where her legs meet her groin, he gently brushes the center of her with his knuckles. Her cheeks flood with heat as she huffs and tries to decide whether she’s feeling enjoyment or vexation. Part of her wants him in her more than anything else, but the other part is enticed by his patient focus and the thousand chills that cascade over her body at each ghost of a touch. His pace feels brazen, though, considering they’ve been interrupted twice now. What if they are again? With him only having managed to ghost his fingertips over her? That frustrated concern must show on her face: he moves his hands to her thighs and finally brings his face low enough that she can feel each and every exhalation against the place she’s aching for him most. She resists the intense urge to writhe up against him.

“Is this what you want?” he asks. He rubs his chin over her pubic bone; the friction of his beard makes her legs jerk. “If not, I can undo the latch and we can just go to sleep…would you like that better? Hm? Or is _this_ what you want?” He kisses her so gently that she feels her hips rise from the mattress, seeking more pressure. He smiles against her as he slowly presses her back down to the bed.

She’s never found his teasing more aggravating— or arousing. She doesn’t think to answer him, too caught up in his taunting as he moves his lips to the crease of her inner thigh. Her fingers tighten gently in his curls. She trembles— and then he pulls his lips from her skin. She lifts her head and looks down towards him questioningly, but she can’t see him due to the swell of her stomach. He lifts his face enough to meet her eyes: his are dark as night, and something about the way he’s holding her legs open makes her shudder.

He gently tightens his grip on her thighs. “You didn’t answer me.”

She squirms, the heat of his breath against her intolerable. “ _Yes_. This is what I want.”

He presses another kiss to her, this one so close to open-mouthed that it makes her heart beat strangely in excitement. She digs her nails into his scalp and fails to fight back her whine. He appreciates the sound; he rewards her with one press of his tongue, and her breath lodges somewhere in her throat, her moan dying before it can even reach her lips.

“I want it,” she repeats. If he heard her, why is he still making her wait?

He kisses her so softly that the kiss would be considered sweet if it were pressed anywhere else.

“And you can be quiet?”

She nods three times. He lifts his mouth from her again.

“Dany?”

“I nodded!”

He drags his beard over her, slowly and deliberately. She throws her arm over her face, covering her eyes as she moans through the overwhelming (wonderful) sensation, certain that— if she could see him— the sight of his face buried between her legs would do her in.

“I need to hear it,” he presses. His words are driving her as mad as his touch; she’s as irritated as she is enraptured. It reminds her of the start of them, the way he’d annoyed her so much the first time they met, yet she couldn’t stop thinking of him…especially of him in bed with her…though back then, she had never imagined he could do things like _this_ …

It takes her quite a few slow inhalations, but she grips onto her thoughts enough to deliver them.

“I was _showing you_ I can be quiet,” she tells him.

“I need to _hear it_ ,” he says again, this time with his lips still against her, his beard caressing her with each word. The friction of his beard causes waves of pleasure to seize her, and she moans audibly this time. She feels his smirk. “See? That’s not quiet. Do you want us to be interrupted again?”

She’s never wanted anything less in her entire life. She thinks— if someone were to knock right now— she would combust into flames.

“No. I don’t want that,” she says, her voice low and quivering. “I want _you…_ ”

“So then…say it.” He directs his breath over her again; her knees jerk up and her thighs quiver. He patiently flattens each knee to the bed once more, opening her up so completely for him that she squirms just at the thought of it. The burning pull in her groin from her legs being spread so wide only intensifies her arousal.

“I can be quiet,” she promises. It’s a lie. They both know it is. “You won’t even know I’m here.”

That makes him laugh. Each burst of air against her makes her own laughter twist into a whine. Her hips jerk up as he nuzzles against her; he forces her back to the bed, pinning her to stillness, and that only makes her needier. When he kisses over her _again_ , it’s even lighter than before— a touch of his lips and an exhale more than anything. The absence of pressure is maddening.

“ _Jon_ ,” she groans. “ _Stop_.”

She realizes too late that it was the wrong word to use. He responds to it without hesitation.

“Stop? Okay.” He goes to pull away, a smirk playing at the edge of his lips. She gently yanks him by his hair, pulling his mouth back to her. He’s definitely grinning then.

“Stop _tormenting_ me,” she clarifies, though he knew well what she meant before. “That’s an order.”

“And what you order, I will obey, Your Grace,” he affirms. He _finally_ gives her what she’s desperate for, but after only a few moments of blissful writhing beneath his tongue, he pulls back and pauses. He rests his cheek against her inner thigh. She lifts up on her elbows and looks down at him, flushed and aching. His eyes have never looked fiercer. “Did Daario Naharis do this to you?”

The question should annoy her, but instead, it makes her loop her legs around him, trying to drag his face back to her. He resists patiently, his eyes burning into hers, his rapid breaths and black eyes giving his own arousal away. She swallows a moan at the thought of how hard he must be by now, shameless and wrung of all her reservations. _Not like you do,_ she thinks. Nobody she’s ever been with did anything as well as he does it.

“No,” she answers, her voice trembling impatiently. “Just you.”

“Mmm,” he comments. “Just me.” He considers that for an exaggerated amount of time. “Tell me again.”

She’ll tell him whatever truth he wants to hear in every tongue she knows as many times as he wants just to get his mouth on her again. She lets the words tumble from her lips, breathless and desperate, admitting anything and everything in hopes one of those admissions is what he’s searching for.

“No, Daario _never_ made me feel like you do— he never did it so well or so good— he never had me aching like you do— he never fit inside me so perfectly like you do— I never wanted his seed to quicken— he wasn’t my family— he wasn’t _mine,_ not like you are— you’re my king—my love—the father of my children _—_ the last dragon— you’re part of me—when you’re inside me I want to keep you there forever, it’s— it’s _so right_ and _holy_ and I _love_ your _—_ _oh!_ ”

He likes something she said— that’s for certain. Perhaps all of it; his enthusiasm when he finally gives in is so intense it’s nearly distressing. She’d previously worried she wouldn’t get that same degree of pleasure back that she’d had before their interruption, but that worry is utterly unfounded. Jon sets her aflame to the point that she forgets every title— forgets her name— forgets everything but the way her body pulses and sings. She’s incensed and half-deranged with sensation, feeling every bit _the Mad Queen_ beneath his mouth. He has to clamp his hand over her lips again, her previous promise falling to the wayside rather quickly as they both knew it would. _Shh,_ he orders, chuckling breathlessly, _you’ll wake her again, you promised you’d be quiet. Do you want me to stop?_ She certainly _doesn’t_ want that, but she can’t control her cries; she has to pull him back up her body so he can muffle her mouth with his. And when he readjusts their position and _finally_ sinks inside her again, all she can think about are his words from earlier. _Your body was made for mine,_ he’d said, but he was wrong. His body was made for _hers_. As he makes love to her, the words that burst from his lips are raw and feral. _Mine. You’re mine. Not his. Say you’re mine…Dany, say it…say you’re mine…because I’m yours…I’m yours…_

Her entire body is already screaming that she’s his, but she gasps the words he seeks anyway. Each time she says it, he pushes into her, and it’s so nice that she finds herself babbling those same words over and over, spurring him on. _I’m yours! Yours! Yours! Yours!_ Others follow, interspersed with badly-muffled cries and moans: _that feels so good— yes—I’m yours, Jon— I love you, I love you— you’re mine, too, you are—_

“I am, I’m yours, I’ve always been,” he groans. “You’re my family—everything— _Gods,_ Dany, I _love_ you _—so much—”_

She loves him, too. When they shatter, it’s with such shared fervency that she feels like both their hearts might stop for a second time. She lay there panting and trembling in the aftermath, overcome with the intensity of it all— her pleasure and her emotion. The sweet throbbing between her legs matches the swollen heaviness of her heart. _I love him,_ she thinks again, and before he pulls from her, she kisses his shoulder and caresses his hip. He’s shaking and damp with sweat, and as soon as he withdraws and collapses on his back, he drags her to his side and holds her. His lips press briefly to her forehead, his quick pants skating across her skin, but then he lets his head fall back on the pillow.

“ _Gods_ ,” Jon says again, and when Dany looks up at him, he’s still flushed and trembling. His chest heaves wildly. The sight of him so undone fills her with deep affection; she wants to praise him, kiss his skin and tell him he did a great job— but she’s still unraveled, too, and doesn’t want to talk just yet. She settles for lying over his chest. She kisses the scar above his heart as she recovers, pressing kiss after kiss as her pulse struggles to even out. For a time, the world is padded and narrow: all she hears is the buzzing and ringing filling her ears— all she feels is her body relaxing into Jon’s, his scar beneath her lips, his heart drumming hard in his chest.

“I owe Daario a debt,” Daenerys finally murmurs. “If his aggravation results in _this_ , I’ll give him a seat on the small council just to keep him close by so he can irritate you every evening.”

“You wouldn’t,” he growls.

“No,” she agrees. She smiles. “Though I’ll admit it’s tempting…”

“I can’t stand him, Dany,” he admits.

Dany kisses his scar a final time. She squirms off his chest, choosing to curl at his side and lay her head on his arm. He kisses the top of her head.

“An intense reaction having only spoken to him for a half-hour,” she comments. He gives a noncommittal grunt. She knows a major source of his dislike is simply the knowledge that Dany had once taken Daario into her bed, not from any true dislike of Daario personally, though she must admit she can’t imagine them getting on very well even if she wasn’t a source of tension. Yet it’s ridiculous to her that Jon can feel jealous of Daario when she’s lying here in _his_ arms, leaking _his_ seed onto _their_ marriage bed, pregnant with _his_ son. What, exactly, is there for him to covet?

But fears aren’t always so rational, and he doesn’t have to tell her that this uneasiness is coming from a place linked to his anxiety. She understands that, and she feels the same: her own anxiety has been rousing in the form of doubts for the past couple of moonturns. Doubts that she’s a good mother— doubts that she’s a good queen— doubts that she’s a good wife. It all stems back to the things she and Jon are coping with (or are not coping with), the fear that’s heavy as stones over their hearts and doubles in size with each day that passes and brings them closer to the birth. And so she knows, logically, that Daario is no threat to Jon, nor her, nor Aemon, but she also knows that, to Jon, it might very well feel like he is because most things feel that way lately. She can’t fix the core issue, but she can reassure him.

“Whose bed am I in now?” she asks lightly.

“Ours.” It’s guttural and low. From the tone of it, she half-expects him be hard again.

She shows him how unwarranted his jealousy is, first by bringing his hand between her legs, and then by flattening his trembling fingers to her belly. Those two touches affect him more than any verbal reassurance could.

“Don’t forget it,” she orders.

He lifts her hand to his lips and kisses her scar. “ _Kessa, ñuha dāria_.”

She’s almost sad to find his pronunciation is nearly perfect by now— at least of that particular, well-practiced phrase. She misses the Northern clumsiness of his beginner’s Valyrian.

“Remember tomorrow,” she tells him in Valyrian. “When he looks at me that same way.”

He nudges her chin up and kisses her. His beard is still damp.

“Or we can just do this all over again tomorrow.”

She smiles. He rubs his nose against hers gently before kissing her again. It’s achingly soft and tender— comforting. Sweet. She can’t stop smiling as he kisses her again, each time as soft and sleepy as the first.

“Okay,” she whispers.

He smiles against her lips. “Okay?”

“Mm. Yes. Okay.”

They tangle together, their exhaustion finally breaking through. Dany's so relaxed and tired she hardly feels her baby's tireless kicks, and she certainly doesn't mind them. Sometimes they keep her awake, but not tonight. As Dany follows Jon towards sleep, she marvels at the way Jon makes her feel the safest she’s ever been whilst at her most vulnerable. _A skill only he’s ever had,_ she thinks, her thoughts weighted with exhaustion. _The most important one. I’ll need that in the months to come._

He’s still holding her as she falls asleep.

XI.

She wakes in a blind panic an uncertain amount of time later with only one thing on her mind: _the latch._

She’s so horrified at herself for forgetting— so worried and so guilty— that she’s trembling as she stumbles exhausted from the bed. Her journey across the bedchambers is slanted; she’s disoriented and can’t seem to walk straight. And when her fingers fumble with the latch, for a second, she can’t process why it won’t slide back. Then understanding settles over her: it’s already unlatched.

She sags against the doorframe, relieved. Her guilt ebbs away slowly, leaving affection and gratitude in its place. When her eyes seek her husband, he looks as if he hasn’t budged an inch: he’s still deeply asleep, naked beneath the tangled covers, his face smooth and beautiful in the moonlight. She doesn’t know when he rolled from the bed and undid the latch, but she’s thankful that he did.

As she stands there and gradually wakes fully, she becomes aware of the things she needs: a wash, the privy, water, more cake…but she needs to set her eyes on her daughter and make sure she’s okay most of all. That’s more important than anything else. _Did I forget that last night?_ She worries, her guilt rearing again. _Was I impatient with her when she woke? I didn’t feel as if I was. But what if she was upset and I wasn’t there for her? What if she woke before Jon undid the latch and she felt scared and alone?_ Then, the fear that’s been trailing behind her lately, rearing at the slightest provocation: _am I a bad mother?_

She’s voiced that concern once to Jon. He had looked at her as if she asked something ridiculous. But neither of them had a mother growing up…what would they have to compare her to? How would they know?

Her only solace is that Arya and Sansa have told her she’s a good mother. They had a mother who loved them; she prays they would know. She prays they would tell her the truth if she wasn’t. Would they still think she was? If they knew she’d locked Lyaella out last night just so she could _finally_ have an uninterrupted moment with her husband? At the time, it’d seemed fine…but at the time, she was half-mad with arousal.

She pulls her dressing gown on and steps through to Lyaella’s bedchambers. Her concerns are dashed to dust: Lyaella’s in the same spot she was when Dany left her, her blanket lying loosely beside her, her face calm and relaxed in sleep. Her bedside lamp is still burning, the fire casting soft orange light over Lyaella’s silver curls. After watching her chest rise and fall steadily for a few moments, she retreats quietly from the room and cracks the door separating their bedchambers. She looks back at the bed; her heart flutters as she meets Jon’s grey eyes.

“Did she wake?” he asks. His eyelids drift shut soon after the question, but he slides his hand across the bed, reaching towards her.

“No, I was checking on her. She’s still asleep.”

She crosses the room and perches on Jon’s side of the bed. He slides over at once and wraps his arms around her waist. She feels his lips press to the base of her spine.

“I’m going to bathe,” she tells him. She sets her hands on his forearms and rubs his skin gently with the pads of her thumbs. “Come with me?”

He mumbles his answer into her dressing gown. “Is this your way of telling me I need a wash?”

She laughs. “No. It’s my way of telling you that I desire your company.” There’s a brief pause. “Though we both _do_ need a wash. And I need some more of those mint cakes…”

She trails off and turns towards the tray near the door. She’s relieved to see the tin is still there.

He yawns. “A wash and mint cakes it is. But you might have to help me up.”

“Sure. I’m very strong as of late, and exceptionally good at rising from soft surfaces. In fact, I can carry you straight there,” she jests.

He’s laughing as he kisses her thigh. He tightens his arms around her hips and hugs her a final time. His beard tickles her as he opens her gown and presses a kiss to the side of her belly; she succumbs to laughter, which only makes him kiss her again in the same spot, his smile easily felt.

“I love that sound,” he admits. His tone couldn’t be sweeter if he tried. The sleepiness woven through it only intensifies it.

“Is it your favorite?”

He rubs his beard against her skin. She flinches at the sensation and laughs harder.

“No. Not my favorite.” The deep tenor of his voice tells her just what _is_ his favorite. “But one of them.”

She pushes at his shoulders the next time he does it, her amusement giving way to annoyance. “All right, stop, if you make me piss in this bed I’ll be very cross.”

“Technically it would be Aemon that makes you do that. I’m not pressing on your bladder.” He sits up and edges his way off the bed. He holds his hands out for Dany; she takes them gratefully. He pulls her gently to her feet. “Bath and mint cakes.”

“Mint cakes and a bath,” she corrects. “The mint cakes are first.”

“Not the privy?”

She corrects herself at once, the pressure in her lower abdomen too great to ignore much longer. “The privy, _then_ mint cakes, _then_ the bath.”

They leave their bathing chamber door ajar so they can listen out for Lyaella. The copper tub is ordinarily plenty big for the both of them with room to spare, but at this stage in her pregnancy, it’s cozy rather than roomy. She doesn’t bemoan that. She twines with Jon and soaks leisurely, eating soggy mint cakes from her bath-wrinkled fingers. Jon plays idly with her hair, yawning every couple of minutes. The hot water eases any bodily fatigue or soreness left from their night, and the silence is a rare gift: it’s nearly never so quiet and peaceful. They’re hardly ever allowed to be this _alone._

“It’s getting cold,” Dany sighs. “It never stays hot long enough.”

“It’s still _steaming_ , Dany. I’m sweating.”

She reaches up and touches his glistening forehead. “Only a bit.”

“You’re not at all.”

“No. Aemon and I love it,” she smiles. She lowers her arm and turns her face to kiss Jon’s chest. She rests her cheek there afterwards. Her fingers slip over his wet skin beneath the water, tracing the ridges of muscle over his stomach. She counts Aemon’s shifts and kicks within her; they’re much gentler now than they were on the walk to the privy, as if the warm water is soothing him, as well.

“I think I might like to try birthing him here,” Dany muses.

Jon’s quiet. His hand pauses in her hair.

“ _Here-_ here?” he clarifies. “In the water?”

“Yes. Yara says that’s custom on the Iron Islands. They have them in the sea. Aethel told me it’s done in some parts of Essos as well. She says it’s safe as any other way so long as it’s controlled and managed properly. And it sounded nice to me. Being in the water. Clean and peaceful. New.”

And new is what they need. She hopes if the circumstances of Aemon’s birth are as far removed from the circumstances of Lyaella’s as possible that it will be less traumatizing for them. Maybe, if she has Aemon here in a safe, familiar place, with nothing rushing her and no outside threats, it’ll feel very different from the last time, and they won’t be as worried. They won’t constantly be reminded of the last time if this time is nothing like it. She might be less afraid in the comfort of the warm water, and maybe Aemon would be less stressed. And this way, Lyaella could even come in to visit her if it’s a long process. The tub would provide a bit more modesty; it might not alarm Lyaella as much as her writhing half-naked on a birthing bed might.

She grows more certain the more she thinks about it, but Jon isn’t yet sold. His reservations are still anchored in the past.

“You wanted to stand the last time. You couldn’t stand in the bath. You would fall.”

“I _had_ to stand the last time. I knew if I stayed in that bed that I would die before I could do what I had to do. I had to keep going— I couldn’t rest, I couldn’t stop. And I was right: the moment I finally did, I died.”

It’s the truth, but as soon as she says it, she wishes she hadn’t. She can sense his distress at those words. She feels a sympathetic wave of nausea; she thinks it must be coming from him. The look on his face when she glances up at him confirms it.

“But it won’t be like that this time,” she comforts him. She reaches up and touches his beard. “It won’t, Jon.” 

“How do you know that? How do you know? You said you nearly died when you had Rhaego. You did die while you had Lyaella. Maybe— maybe this was a mistake. What if— what if—”

She presses her fingers to his lips. He looks deeply unsettled; his grey eyes churn with torment.

“It’s not a mistake. It’s going to be fine.” She squirms up his body enough to reach his lips. Her kiss is lingering, and after she pulls away, she stays close to him, her forehead pressed to his and her fingers stroking his cheeks. “The question now is whether you’re willing to sit in bloody water with me.”

“When has blood _ever_ bothered me?” he mutters gruffly. “I’ll be at your side. Whether it’s here or in the hot springs of Winterfell.”

“Now _there’s_ a thought…”

He rolls his eyes. They’ve already discussed that particular detail of the birth at length: it will be _here_. No journeying anywhere. Not this time.

They rest together until the water is so cool even Jon admits it’s tepid. Before they leave the water, Dany hides her face into the damp skin of his shoulder and admits something she’s certain he already knows, but she needs to say anyway.

“I _am_ frightened. It’ll be my third time, but in some ways, it’ll be my first. I wasn’t fully conscious for the first two. Some parts are hazy to me…I’m afraid I won’t know what to do.”

“You’ll know. You knew with Ly, and we’ll have Aethel there.” That’s true. And the odds are already world’s better this time: she won’t be half-dead with blood loss, trapped on a boat, without a maester, and hunted within her own head. She feels much lighter at that thought.

Jon kisses her hair. “We need to decide how much we want to tell Lyaella about the process, and if we plan on letting her be there.”

Dany grimaces at that. Thus far, she and Jon have deflected all Lyaella’s inquiries about how the baby is going to get out. She hasn’t found a nice way to explain it.

“I don’t think she should be there for all of it. It’s too frightening. Honestly, Jon, with how often she reads, she might find answers for herself if we’re not careful.”

“I’d rather her hear it from us,” Jon frowns. “Let’s talk to Aethel this afternoon and see if she can think of a gentle way for us to explain it to her.”

“All right,” Dany agrees. She drags his hand over and sets it on her belly. She likes the weight of it. “And we’ve got to show Tormund Lyaella’s drawing. We need to talk to him about what she’s seen.”

“I think I’m dreading that more than explaining childbirth to our daughter,” he admits.

“I know,” Dany murmurs. “But we need to. If we’re going to reinstate the Night’s Watch, we’ll need Tormund’s help with recruiting, and he’ll need to know why he’s doing it. We’ve also got to figure out what to do about the Faith.”

“And _that_ I look forward to least of all.”

Dany feels similarly. She’s afraid there will be no other choice than to allow the High Septon at the birth, and just the thought of that makes her feel sick. She doesn’t trust him. She’ll be uncomfortable the entire time, on edge. She doesn’t want that. She doesn’t need that. She and Jon are going to be stressed enough.

“I don’t want him there.”

“I know. I don’t, either. He _won’t_ be.”

“And if that’s the only way to prevent an uprising?”

His voice is gravelly. “Then I’m going to war.” He strokes her hair back, his touch gentle. “I can compromise on a lot, Dany. I can bite my tongue and sit beside Daario Naharis as long as you ask it of me. I can permit the building of more septs to keep the Septon civil even if it means putting off better projects. I can say what I need to say and do what I need to do to keep the peace. But I won’t do this. I won’t let the Faith threaten their way into that room. I won’t let them invade your privacy or take your peace. I won’t let them make it harder— I won’t give them the chance to hurt you. I _won’t_. I don’t care what I have to do to prevent it. I’ll do whatever I must. I won’t bend. I won’t kneel.”

Dany thinks she might if it means safety for her people. If it means safety for her family. And maybe she ought to.

“They’ll say we should just grit our teeth and permit it for the greater good. Davos and Tyrion will say that. Sansa, too, probably.”

“Perhaps. But the Others can take them if so. Arya won't say that. Grey Worm won't say that. Because they understand. They were there before. They know.”

 _Is it selfish of us?_ Dany wants to ask. The thought swims uneasily through her thoughts. _Is it selfish of me?_ She doesn’t want to be a queen that puts her own comfort over the safety and stability of her people. She doesn’t want to be like that. But this is her body and her life. This is her family. She’s been a queen with no say over her own body before, and she doesn’t want to be that ever again.

“There’s got to be a line. There has to be,” she decides. “I would give most anything for my people. You know I would. But this…this is asking more than I want to give. Is that selfish?”

“No. It’s not. Even if it were, though, you’re entitled to a bit of it.”

The way he kisses her makes her believe it.

XII.

“'And then…then the Sea Snake said…s…see…seize him! Geld him—' _Fawder_! Geld!! There’s geld in this book!— 'they grab-bed the _fief,_ lifted the _k..n_ …the _k_...—” Lyaella breaks off and laughs, delighted. Dany looks at her daughter’s reflection in the looking glass; Lyaella smacks her own forehead. “ _Knife_! I know that one!"

Dany smiles fondly. She continues smoothing rose-scented skin cream into her stomach, Lyaella’s persistent, stumbling words an adorable backdrop to her morning routine. She doesn’t fully realize that Lyaella’s about to become aware of the true meaning of _geld_ until Jon’s fingers suddenly slip from her hair. Her braids unravel as he twists and darts over towards the sofa, ripping the book out of Lyaella’s hands. She cries out in protest.

“Daddy!” she complains.

Jon scans the page. “Then they let the thief go after he swore he'd never steal ever again. In punishment for his crimes, he was exiled to the other side of the world.” He closes the book. “Mother needs your help, Lyaella, and I can’t help her because I’m busy braiding her hair.”

Lyaella forgets about the book entirely. She hops off the sofa eagerly and bounces over to Dany, the lavender silk of her dress billowing after her. She leans against Daenerys’s hip and looks up at her. Dany smiles down at her fondly.

“Yes, Mamma?” Lyaella asks.

Daenerys meets Jon’s eyes in the looking glass. She’s not sure what she needs help with. Jon lifts his shoulders; he clearly hasn’t thought his diversion through. Thankfully, she comes up with something.

“Could you set this back on the table for me, please?” she asks their daughter, passing the jar of skin cream to her.

Lyaella beams. She nods.

“I can, I will, I love to!” she sings.

She takes the jar from Dany’s hand and lifts it up, sniffing happily at the seam of the lid. Dany’s certain the smell reminds her of bedtime by now; she’s been rubbing it into her skin every morning and every night for the past few moonturns. The way Lyaella’s frame relaxes at the scent tells her she’s likely right.

“Can I have some, too? Please, _Muver_?” 

“Of course,” Dany smiles. She pulls her dress back down and smoothes it over her stomach. The fabric sticks to her skin where the cream wasn’t fully absorbed. “As much as you’d like, just be careful not to get it on your dress. Annet won’t be happy.”

Lyaella carries it obediently to the side table. Jon resumes his braiding, and Dany watches their daughter as she carefully unscrews the jar. She dips her fingers into the jar gingerly, scooping the tiniest bit out at a time and rubbing it into her hands and neck, painstakingly mindful of her mother’s warnings about her dress. Dany locks eyes with Jon through the looking glass. His soft smile echoes her own, and as he leans in to kiss her cheek, her eyes flutter shut. She has a familiar thought then, one she’s had often the past few years. _Have I ever been happier?_ Each time she wonders it, she thinks it’s impossible that she has. But then another brilliant moment comes.

“There,” Jon says. His voice sounds strained, almost like he’s withholding laughter. “At the risk of being immodest, I think it’s my best yet.”

She takes in her reflection. Jon turns her sightly so she can get a glimpse of the back. She falls into laughter as soon as she sees it.

“What did you _do_?!” she demands. She reaches back and pats at the messy, intertwined braids, her laughter so hard it makes her belly jump beneath the sage-colored silk of her dress. Aemon twists within her in response; she rubs her belly absently as she continues laughing. “What is this?!”

“It’s our sigil. See the spiral here?”

She doubles over as much as she can, her hands pressing her thighs as she gasps through peals of laughter. It’s truly the worst her hair has ever looked. And she’s had some moments of horrid, wind-swept hair.

“I see it, Daddy,” Lyaella says sweetly, earnestly. “It’s such a good job. Such a good job, my good daddy.”

Lyaella’s pity only makes Dany laugh harder. She feels sudden pressure between her legs, and she twists them together urgently, trying her hardest to stifle her laughter before she wets her smallclothes. But every time she tries to stop she sees Jon’s grin, and it sets her off again. She’s still doubled over, her arms wrapped around her stomach and her legs twisted together, when Arya joins them.

“Good morning,” she greets. There’s a short pause. “Has Mother had an accident, Lyaella? You should really give her some tips on using the chamberpot.”

Daenerys snatches a comb off the side table and hurls it Arya’s way, but her aim is generously off. Arya begins laughing, too.

“What the _fuck_ is on your head?!”

“It’s our sigil,” Lyaella tells her firmly. Her tone is almost threatening, like she's warning Arya not to hurt her father's feelings. 

“The fuck it is!”

“Arya!” Jon scolds.

“That’s not a nice word. Fuck is not,” Lyaella says solemnly. 

Dany’s lightheaded by the time her laughter finally begins to ease off. She inhales slowly and cautiously unwinds her legs. Arya’s swinging Lyaella through the air when she looks back at them.

“Lyaella, how would you like to see _six_ baby goats?” Arya asks.

“Kids!” Lyaella corrects. "Baby goats are kids, Awa."

Arya rolls her eyes fondly. “Yes, sure. Six kids. Tormund and I reached a compromise.”

“I want to! Oh, I want to so much! Can I, _Muver_? Can I, _Fawder_?!” Lyaella pleads.

“What are you going to do with six baby goats?” Jon demands. “You could’ve let Tormund out of that agreement.”

“No, I couldn’t have. I wouldn’t have six baby goats if I had.”

“You don’t _need_ six baby goats!”

" _Kids_ ," Lyaella whispers. 

“You should watch those goats closely,” Dany warns Arya. “Goats are the dragons’ favorite meal.”

“And watch Nymeria, too,” Jon adds. “She might get them if you're not careful.”

“She won’t,” Arya scowls. “Nymeria would never. Isn’t that right, Lyaella?”

“Nymeria kisses me,” Lyaella says, her tone definitive as if that settles the debate entirely.

Arya hugs Lyaella to her chest and cradles her. “Can I take Lyaella with me?”

Lyaella looks at them so pleadingly that Dany is certain neither of them could give any answer beyond _yes_.

“Yes, that’s fine,” Dany permits. “Just meet us at the hall for lunch.”

“And if you two go train afterwards, make sure she’s careful with that blade Gendry made for her,” Jon adds. “It’s sharp. I tried it myself.”

“I will,” Arya promises. “We won’t get up to _any_ trouble. Isn’t that right, Lyaella?”

“Right! We are not _naudy,_ ” Lyaella says solemnly. Arya rocks Lyaella playfully, but Lyaella reacts as if she’s rocking her to sleep. She yawns deeply and snuggles against Arya’s chest. 

“Oh, am I boring you?” Arya demands.

“No, I’m _seepy_ ,” Lyaella tells her. “I woke up this many times.” She holds up ten fingers. Dany and Jon share a quick, sheepish look. Dany occupies herself with undoing her ridiculously ugly braids to keep from looking too guilty.

“You did? That many times? Why did you do that?”

Lyaella shrugs, smiling. “I don’t know, _Awa_. I think I was just wanting to wake up and see you again.”

“Ah, yes. Probably,” Arya agrees. She tosses Lyaella gently into the air. Lyaella’s giggling as she catches her. “I did the same thing while I was away. I even woke one night and found myself trying to swim back to you.”

“Really?!”

“No way. I enjoyed the quiet.”

“You’re so silly, Awa _..._ Gendy’s not quiet.”

“Not with you. He can’t get _enough_ of talking to you. It’s probably because you’re so interesting.”

“Yeah, _probly_ ,” Lyaella agrees.

Arya’s still laughing as she meets Dany’s eyes.

“Where will you two be if I want to hand her back off before lunchtime?”

Dany feels a sting of trepidation. “The council chambers. We’ve got to talk about the Faith.”

Arya’s smile melts away. “Oh. Don’t listen to anything they say. Don’t agree to it.”

“We’re not,” Jon assures her firmly.

Arya nods. She flings Lyaella over her shoulder. “All right. We’re going to pet the baby goats.”

“The kids!”

“Allowing you to read was a _massive_ mistake…fine, the _kids_.”

“Can we name them?!”

“As long as none are named Alysanne. If I have to hear that name again, I might explode.”

“…oh,” Lyaella says, her voice small.

Arya heaves a sigh. “I’m only kidding…”

Their bantering fades as they walk down the corridor. Dany feels a pang of longing in her heart, followed by the urge to hurry after her daughter, but she reassures herself by remembering that it’s Arya who has Lyaella. She’s in the only hands as safe as her parents’ hands.

“Ready?” Jon asks.

She finishes combing her fingers through her loose hair. “I suppose so."

He pauses behind her for a moment and kisses just beneath her ear. His fingers sink into her loose hair after that. He's quiet as he twists her hair into a single braid quickly and expertly. He ties it off and then lifts it, twisting it around and pinning it at the back of her head. It's a proper arrangement, not one meant to make her laugh, and somehow the sight of it fills her with just as much affection as the first did. Dany's affection is a swollen weight within her chest. 

"Now you are. Though I preferred the other one." 

She leans back against him and cranes her head up, her lips seeking his. They both smile into the kiss. She'd quite like to stay in here and kiss him for the rest of the day, but they have things to do and problems to attend to, something he's equally aware of. She takes his offered hand and uses it to steady herself as she sinks onto the bench near the looking glass. Jon kneels in front of her as he helps her into her boots. She watches his fingers pulling at the laces, her hands resting atop her stomach and her mind whirling with all the things she doesn’t want to do today. Yet, even with all those anxieties— speaking of Lyaella’s ‘ice circles’ with Tormund, dealing with the issues with the Faith, talking with Daario about the Red Priestesses— she’s still world’s away from how she felt at this point in her pregnancy with Lyaella. _At least I’m me. At least I can sleep at night. At least I can eat. At least I can make love to Jon without someone else lurking in me. Everything else is manageable._

“You’re getting good at that,” Dany teases as he ties her last boot. 

“Well, I _have_ been lacing shoes and breeches since I was only a boy. I had to _beg_ my lord father to allow me to learn such a common, lowborn skill, but he permitted it. I even know how to wash myself.”

She matches his dry humor easily. “Oh, but what did your servants have to do if you washed yourself and laced your own breeches?”

“They were eventually driven mad by boredom.”

“Ah, of course.”

He helps her back up.

“It’s a good thing, too: you’ll need help lacing your boots for many more moonturns yet.”

Dany’s skeptical. _Many more_ seems unlikely. Two more, perhaps, but not _many._ She’s already nearing the size she was when she had Lyaella, and she knows Jon is aware of that fact as much as he likes to ignore it. But she knows a comment like that will only make Jon withdraw; his anxiety will fester and eat at him the rest of the day. And she doesn’t want that. So she smiles and weaves her fingers through his. She hopes she’ll have time: time to help Jon with his trauma, time to help explain what’s to come to her daughter, time to overcome her own fear. Time to be brave.

“I’m glad I have you, then.”

He smiles. It makes her chest feel warm as the sun.

“Because I lace your boots?”

“Certainly. That’s the _only_ reason,” she jests—while thinking of every _true_ reason. The list goes on, and on, and on. She’s still winding her way through it as they reach the council chamber; she’s not even halfway through. _Maybe it never ends,_ she thinks. _Maybe that’s what happiness is. A never-ending list of things you love. Things you’re thankful for._

If so, she found it long ago.


	6. Outrunning the Dark

I.

Jon had taken Daario for an overconfident man of mild intelligence who compensates his lack of cleverness with cocksure bravery. But only a half-hour into their council meeting that morning, he realizes his assumption was incorrect. Daario _is_ an overconfident fool— but he also possesses a keen political insight. Jon finds he's truly not that surprised: his wife must've found _something_ she liked about this man, and she's not one to be fooled by flashy acts alone.

"We restructured the marketplace within Meereen, which seemed to help keep the slavers at bay for some time, and your soldiers continue to do a decent job keeping the peace amongst the people, but it feels as if we're suppressing the uprisings in one location only to have them pop up in another. The elected leaders— both in Meereen and Astapor— are cooperative but overwhelmed, and the elected leader in Yunkai was a failure in freedom of choice."

They digest this. Tyrion and Sansa exchange a look, and Davos makes a gruff, troubled sound at the back of his throat. Dany is the first to speak.

"Meaning what, exactly?" she questions. She continues kneading just below her ribcage, but her face is clear of discomfort and her expression mild. "How is he a failure?"

"He was previously vested in the recruitment of bedslaves—"

Daenerys interrupts him, her voice sharp. "You can't recruit a slave. Recruitment is voluntary; slavery is not. I take it this leader is sympathetic towards slavers?"

"That's putting it mildly. Yet the people chose him. It was fair; I checked thrice myself to be certain."

This frustrates Daenerys. She sets the bit of oatbread in her hand back on the small plate in front of her, her mouth twisted into a grimace.

"It can't have been fair. They wouldn't choose a slaver. You must check again when you return…"

"I will, but I won't find anything different. We followed your instructions on voting protocols to the letter. As to why they would choose him— I've asked quite a few, and all said because they felt he was 'honest, fair, and strong'. As far as in can tell, he's a smith of words."

"He'd have to be," Jon comments. He's listening to Daario's words carefully, but his eyes are on his wife. This has upset her deeply. She locks eyes with him, her lips pressed into a thin line, and he wants nothing more than to fix all of this at once. He doesn't want her to have anything else to worry about. She's got enough— they've got enough.

Jon turns to look at Davos. "What should we do?"

Davos taps his forehead. "Give me a moment and I might be able to pull an idea out of here. Let me think. Keep talking— it helps."

Tyrion takes him up on that gladly. Jon sits and listens as Tyrion and Sansa ask Daario a dozen questions, some clever and some, to Jon's judgement, inconsequential. Dany's soft fingers wrap around Jon's, and she pulls his hand over and splays it over her belly as Daario tells the table everything about life in Dragon's Bay, from the food the people eat to the way their waste is disposed of. Aemon is just as unsettled as Daenerys; he's so active that, for once, Jon understands why Lyaella oftentimes deems his movements 'dancing'. This _could_ be dancing— a fast-paced, unforgiving type set to erratic fiddles.

"We should focus on what's going on with the priestesses first," Tyrion finally says. "That will cause ripples that will reach all the way across the sea— all the way to us."

"And so that makes it most pressing?" Daario asks, his eyebrow cocked. "The priestesses's head count is no more than a half dozen people. We stand to lose thousands if the slavers are able to get a strong enough footing to give rebellion another try. Their attempts four years ago were unsuccessful, but they've been quietly plotting since. In the case of Yunkai, they've been plotting and getting the right people in power."

Aemon jabs Dany sharply, the movement so fierce Jon jumps at bit in surprise at the strength of it against his palm. Jon thinks it's likely an elbow that did it, and he frowns and looks up at Daenerys's face to see if it's bothered her. Beyond a slightly breathless huff, she hardly reacts.

"We can't have a slaver ruling anywhere in the Bay of Dragons. After all we did there— after all our work— we can't."

"But if they _chose_ that ruler, what can we do?" Tyrion counters gently. "It's an unfortunate truth of freedom that we must grapple with: sometimes the choice made is the wrong one, even when made freely. What are we to do about that?"

"We tell them it was the wrong choice! We— well, we tell them to choose again. They're my children, and I wouldn't let Lyaella make a dangerous choice," Daenerys insists.

"Even if you stepped back and told her it was her job to make her own choices now?" Tyrion demands.

"Even then! Because a mother doesn't let her children get hurt. A mother protects her children. She must."

Yet everyone at the table, and especially Jon, can see the conflict that washes over her expression. Jon slides his hand down her stomach and lets it rest on her thigh. Dany swallows roughly and looks away from the rest of them; for a moment, she simply looks down at her stomach and breathes slowly, her expression tormented. Jon knows he can never truly understand this part of her world; he's never been to Essos, and while he loves to listen to Dany speak of it, he's never seen any of the people or the challenges firsthand. But because she's his wife (his blood, his heart), he understands _her_ enough to hear what she must be thinking now: _have I merely liberated them from one set of chains for them to unwittingly put another set back on themselves?_

"Even so," Tyrion intercedes, "to try to change it now would be dangerous. We'll be better off keeping an eye on it."

Daario is watching Daenerys. Jon doubts he's even listening to Tyrion at all.

"Daenerys," he says.

She looks up.

"Would you have me kill him— the Yunkai ruler? Say the word. Say the word, and I'll send his head back to you. I'll chop it clean so it can be mounted to a wall."

He means it. He'd do it. He wouldn't think a thing of it. Jon expects that to irritate him or unsettle him, but he finds himself feeling grateful. More than anything else, he just doesn't want Dany to stress. He doesn't want her to worry. He doesn't care who solves the problem so long as it's solved. But he's not convinced that _would_ solve it.

"Don't do it, Your Grace," Tyrion warns. "That will only make it worse."

Sansa leans forward. "What do you think, Ser Davos?"

Davos toys with the parchment set in front of him, his lips depressed in a tight frown. It's Daario he's watching.

"I take it you think we should deal with the slavers first, Daario. Well, the queen clearly cannot go to Essos in her current state, so we must rely on you and your men. What needs to be done to assist you? We could send further reinforcements and further guidance—"

"No, I don't think that," Daario interrupts, and Jon feels a stab of annoyance. _Don't interrupt Ser Davos,_ he nearly snaps. But he's trying to behave himself. Last night drained some of his frustration and anxiety out, and he's determined to get through the remainder of Daario's visit without punching him again. "The priestesses must first be dealt with."

Tyrion scowls. "I _just said_ —"

"You implied the matter in Essos was less important simply because it was in Essos. It isn't. It's less important right now because we can't handle it if House Targaryen loses its power here. We'll need your armies to handle this when it finally escalates; it does the Bay of Dragons no good for their mother to be depleted from a war here."

No one can argue that.

"So what do we do about the priestesses?" Sansa demands. "Tyrion's right: once the High Septon gets word of what they're doing, he'll use that information to demonize Jon and Daenerys."

"If you would _consider_ humoring the Faith by—"

"No," Jon snaps, interrupting Tyrion before he can even get his words all the way out. "He will not be there. We will _not_ do that. Find a different solution to suggest."

Tyrion's frustrated. "There's no solution even half as good as that one."

"And that one is filthy rubbish. So go pour yourself some more wine or whatever it is you need to think, and think harder."

"None of this is Tyrion's fault," Sansa defends, her tone sharp. Jon's nose twitches against the urge to scowl back at that. "He's right: that _is_ the smartest course of action. We must find a compromise."

"A compromise? Why? Why must _we_ find any of the sort?" Jon can't stop the words. They burst from him, twisted with frustration. "We are not obligated to follow the Seven! We shouldn't have to— to— pretend or compromise our own beliefs just for…what? The comfort of the people who do follow the Seven?"

"The Red God is unorthodox here. You knew that from the start. We said, when you had the Red Temple built, that it would cause some strife, and that's precisely what it's done," Ser Davos reminds Jon, his tone nearing paternal sternness. "I know you feel a certain affinity for this religion— Gods know I understand why, Jon— but allowing them to do a ceremony for tradition's sake doesn't suddenly make you a follower of the Seven anymore than walking into the Red Temple makes me a follower of R'hllor. What, really, are you worried about? That the High Septon will hurt Her Grace? Will hurt the prince?"

" _Yes_." It's nearly a snarl. Davos knows exactly what Jon is worried about; Jon's told him three times so far.

"I won't let it happen," Grey Worm says from Dany's other side. He reaches over and touches Dany's hand. "If you permit it, I'll stand there at his side the entire time. He won't breathe without me seeing it. He won't so much as touch you or baby Aemon."

But that's not the type of hurting Jon is worried about. _He_ would never let the High Septon get close enough to touch her. He's worried about the stress of it. He's worried Dany will feel violated, stressed, afraid— the emotions she had to suffer beneath throughout her entire pregnancy with Lyaella and Lyaella's birth, too. The things he swore she'd never have to go through again. And he's worried that something will go wrong because of all that stress— that he'll lose her again. And beneath that, it's the principle of the matter…it's his pride, a bit. This is _their_ son's birth. This is _their_ experience. It's not something he feels he should have to share with some holy man of a religion he doesn't even follow. And on top of it, he fears what R'hllor might think. What he might feel. What he might do…

"The High Septon has been requesting another meeting with you both for days now," Tyrion reminds them. "Perhaps this is the right time to take him up on it. Sansa is right. If we all talk it through, we can come to some solution. In the meantime, we will send word at once to Volantis and formally instruct them to cease all sacrifices at once. If they fail to listen, we still have soldiers stationed over there. We'll have them arrested."

"Great. So we can have a war with _two_ religions." Jon feels frustrated. He can't stop himself from pushing his chair back and rising. He needs to pace, and pace he does. He feels everyone's eyes on him as he strolls towards the balcony, his jaw tense. _It's not right,_ he thinks again. _It's not right. We aren't forcing anyone to believe in R'hllor. We just want to be left in peace._

"If they listen, they need not be arrested," Davos argues. "This will at least show the Faith you're seriously condemning these sacrifices."

"Why _are_ they sacrificing people?" Daenerys demands. "Daario— have you heard any word on that?"

"Nothing beyond 'the Lord of Light wills it'." Daario's tone conveys his scorn for those words. But R'hllor's power is nothing to scorn. If Daario knew the things the Lord of Light willed, the things he'd brought into existence, he wouldn't mock him.

"The Lord of Light does _not_ will that," Daenerys argues. "They're confused. They're being misled."

"By who?"

"I don't know. Someone. Someone who wants them to turn the wrong way."

"Or to cause you some trouble here," Tyrion muses. There's a brief silence. Nobody seems to know what to say. "We should summon the Septon here. Sansa is right."

Jon closes his eyes. He feels a flash of deep hatred, and he realizes it's aimed at himself. _Why can't I fix this? This is upsetting Dany. It's causing her stress. She's my wife— the mother of my daughter— the mother of my son. I should fix this. It's my job to do that. Why can't I?_

He'd do anything in the world he had to do to lessen the weight on Dany's shoulders. Anything. If he only knew what there was to do.

"I think you and Jon should stay away from the Temple as well, Your Grace," Davos suggests gently. "Might be best to eliminate your visits altogether."

If there were ever a more foolish time to forego faith, Jon can't think of it. Daenerys will soon have their son, and they're going to need R'hllor. He won't stop going to the Temple. If he has to go in the dead of night, he will.

Daenerys is firm. "We should not have to and we will not."

Jon feels his heart swell with affection and pride.

"What we should have to do isn't always in line with what we must do," Tyrion says firmly.

"I am the queen. No one makes me do anything," Dany says, her voice sharp as a slap.

Daario grins broadly at that and makes no attempt to hide it. For a moment, as Jon's gaze converges with Daario's, he thinks they might feel the same pride welling up within their chests, the same dedication and loyalty to this fierce woman. _I can work with that,_ Jon thinks then, the thought calm and steady. _We could do with another person on our side on this matter. Even if it's Daario._

"Speaking directly to the Septon rather than through my advisors might be best, though— you could be right about that," Daenerys continues. Her caressing hand falls from her belly and lands in her lap. Her violet eyes meet Jon's. "What do you think?"

He thinks they should've stayed in their chambers that morning. But that's not a very helpful answer, so he swallows it down.

"I don't think we have anything to discuss with him," he admits. Even the thought of sitting down across from the Septon and listening to him tell _them_ why they _must_ allow him to intrude on such a personal moment makes Jon's heart lurch with rage, his pulse peak. He doesn't think he'll be able to watch his tongue.

Sansa speaks up. "If you could find some sort of compromise…"

"Can _you_ think of one?" Jon challenges. Sansa parts her lips, and Jon speaks before she can. "Besides us giving in and allowing him there!"

"No, I can't, but I'm not the Septon. Maybe there's…an alternative blessing Aemon can receive, one that will satiate the Faith and the people but won't require his presence during the birth."

"Might be," Davos muses. He leans back in his seat and crosses his arms over his chest thoughtfully. "Could be. Worth asking."

Jon can sense Daenerys's gaze. It's a soft tug at his heart. He follows the pressure of it, turning his head instinctively towards her. When their eyes meet again, he feels his pulse even out and calm. _Do you want to?_ she asks. _We don't have to._

He doesn't want to. But it's not really about that anymore. It's about keeping Daenerys, Lyaella, and Aemon safe, no matter the cost, and he's afraid what that cost might be this time. Last time, it was great.

II.

The High Septon arrives with seven members of the Most Devout.

At once, Jon is certain they know about the sacrifices. He's not sure how— it's possible they've had contact with someone within Essos for the singleminded purpose of keeping tabs on the religion— but the smug way they exchange greetings with Lord Tyrion makes Jon certain that they have some new angle at their disposal.

"I didn't expect so many people," Ser Davos says flatly. "We would've brought in more chairs."

"This is fine, Ser Davos, they are simply here to observe," the High Septon says. His voice is hoarse and rough, the cadence of each word choppy and forced. It's grating on the nerves. "Good morning, Your Graces."

Dany turns from her spot at Jon's side— they'd been standing at the balcony watching Lyaella, Gendry, and Arya in the training court below— and looks at the High Septon. Jon does the same, though he wraps his arm around her waist as he does, tucking her firmly to his side, his palm gently pressing into the side of her stomach. Daenerys's face is emotionless, but their son's squirming betrays her own nervousness.

"Hello. Please— sit," Daenerys orders, gesturing at the table.

The High Septon smiles tightly. He's not an old man by any means— he's only a decade or so older than Jon and Dany— but his tight smile causes wrinkles to form around his watery eyes.

"As soon as my queen has sat, I will take my own seat."

It's the first battle of wills; Jon hadn't expected it to happen so soon in the conversation.

"Your queen has requested that you take a seat," Daenerys counters, her voice closing in on a snap.

The High Septon sits.

Dany crosses over to the table and eases down into one of the chairs closest to the balcony. Jon stands stiffly behind her chair, his hand clenched around the back of it. He does not greet the Septon. His hatred has flared up again, roused by the Septon's early attempt at trying to exert some measure of control over Daenerys. If Jon had his way, the Septon would be cast from power right then. _Who does he think he is?_ Jon seethes. _To think he can be there as Dany has Aemon. To think he can witness that. Who is he to us? Nothing. He is not blood of the dragon, and he is not trusted._

Davos and Tyrion sit, and Dany reaches up and sets her hand atop Jon's where it's clenched around her chair. It's a silent request for him to sit as well, and he relents, though he sits stiffly and stares coldly at the Septon. Dany, in contrast, leans back in her seat, her pretty hand stroking absently over their son.

"My Hand made it known you've requested multiple meetings. What is it you wish to discuss?" she asks.

She listens while the Septon begins talking, and Jon seethes. The Septon outlines all the reasons they _must_ allow Aemon to receive the Right of Blessing, emphasizing the good luck it bestows upon him and his 'future rule' heavily, as if he feels that's their main concern.

"Forgive me, High Septon, but this Right of Blessing didn't do many other Targaryen heirs any favors. My brother Rhaegar still died at the Trident."

This ruffles the Septon's composure somewhat. "Yes, but he had a healthy childhood."

"And many of my brothers and sisters didn't survive birth or infancy. How many of them were given this blessing?" Dany shoots back.

"None of them after a certain point. Your father became…paranoid." His eyes flash to Jon at that, which only makes him angrier. He can't stop himself from lashing out. He feels his emotions have been as volatile as Dany's have, yet he doesn't have the excuse of carrying another human inside of him to explain it.

"I am paranoid. And had I been more paranoid the last time—" Jon stops abruptly. What Dany went through having Lyaella is still not openly-recognized public knowledge, and it's not something he cares to discuss with the Septon. "You will _not_ be present during the birth. It will _not_ happen."

Dany wraps her arms around her stomach. Whether or not she intended it as such, the gesture is achingly defensive; Jon scoots closer to her in response.

"I think we ought to begin discussing alternatives," Dany states. "If you wish to bless him, we shall be thankful for any blessing we can get. But this can happen at a later date, or from a certain distance."

"It doesn't work like that. It must happen as he enters this world and takes his first seven breaths," the Septon refutes. "The people tolerate your confusion with the Red God—"

"It's not a _confusion_ ," Jon bites.

"— and we do our best to ignore news of what perverse things the Red Priestesses are doing in Essos in the name of that god, which is difficult to do considering nearly everyone is writing, reading, and sending letters off now, which means they're well aware of what is going on in other parts of our world in ways they never were before, but if you refuse this…it will make the people and the Faith…uneasy."

Davos, Tyrion, and Dany fall silent at that. Davos and Tyrion exchange a heavy look. Jon pushes forward.

"Then drink some essence of nightshade to calm your nerves. We are all free to believe what we wish to believe. We aren't stopping you, and you aren't stopping us."

"Your Grace, what we believe reflects our morals, and a well-functioning kingdom must share the same morals to function properly. Just last week there was news of another human sacrifice in Lys at the hand of _your_ Red God. It makes the people afraid."

"That is not R'hllor's doing nor his wishes," Daenerys argues. "Some Priestesses are corrupt. We are working on it. It is going to stop."

"What better way to reassure the people than through this? It shows them you believe in what is good and what is right—"

Jon interrupts. "The only thing it will show them is that we let the Faith manipulate yet another ruler. We won't. That is _final_ , do not ask us again. If you come up with an alternative, we will be happy to discuss that."

The Septon falls silent at those words. He looks between Dany and Jon slowly.

"I never saw it until now. You are truly a Targaryen king," he tells Jon. It is not a compliment. He looks to Daenerys after that. "I never imagined you'd be a queen who lets your king speak for you, Your Grace. As the one bringing the babe into the world, shouldn't you have the final say?"

It's clear what he's attempting to do, and it backfires violently. Daenerys scowls at him.

"If you think the king would go against my wishes, you're a fool. If I told him I wanted you there, he would have a settee and refreshments brought for you, make no mistake. If my own feelings were unclear, let me make them apparent: I think you are attempting to force your way into my birthing chambers, and I am watching your intentions very closely. The moment I sense malicious intent towards my children or myself, I will arrange your visit to the Dragon Pit. You say my people fear me because of my differing faith? I see only love from my people. I have fed them, housed them, nursed them back to health, given them freedom to learn and travel and imagine…if those actions don't speak for my 'morals', nothing will." She grasps onto the arms of her chair and heaves herself up. Jon rises with her. "We have nothing more to discuss. You may leave."

The High Septon does not stand, but Jon sees the members of the Most Devout shift uneasily.

"The Faith urges you to reconsider. We understand it's a sensitive proposition, but you need not anger the Faith—"

"The Faith need not anger _me,_ " Jon interrupts. His anger has reared its head with tremendous effect; he goes from feeling mildly frustrated to furious in what seems like an instant. It's overwhelming rage: his heart pounds rapidly in his chest, and there's a gnawing, hollow feeling weighing in the pit of his stomach. He steps forward and presses both palms to the table, leaning forward and peering hard at the Septon from where he sits on the other side of the mahogany. "I won't stand for you threatening us. We have allowed you to worship and congregate in peace, but the moment you start threatening my family— the _instant_ you so much as conspire to make my wife _uncomfortable_ — you will lose that right. If you think the Seven are uneasy now, wait until they see what I'll do should you cross my family."

Annoyance flashes over the High Septon's face.

"Do not forget, Your Grace," he warns him. "Monarchs come and monarchs go. Targaryen one day, Baratheon another, Lannister after. And through it all, the Faith always remains. Your ancestors knew this well; they relented and joined under the Seven long ago. Even after that, we had many squabbles with Targaryens who thought they could overpower us. It was King Jaehaerys who brought an end to those squabbles, and that was through compromise and compromise alone. What makes you think you won't have to do the same?"

Jon blinks. He's almost surprised by the question.

"Oh, you haven't heard," he says. His pulse echoes in his ears. "I'm not like the rest. I'm R'hllor's special project. See, my wife and I have heard his words, seen his face, and been pulled from death by him; there's not much you can say to intimidate me or make me doubt _my_ god's strength. I would tread very lightly if I were you."

They're at an impasse. Everyone in the room is aware of it. Tyrion parts his lips a few times, but even he can think of nothing to say to break the tense silence. Jon's passively aware of the fact that this conversation likely made things worse rather than better, but was there ever a chance that they could fix this? Right then, he doesn't think so. The options seem to be rolling over and sacrificing Dany's comfort and safety, or war. And Jon will take war.

"Well," the High Septon finally says. He rises. The Most Devout exchange unhappy looks. "If anything, Your Grace, it seems we've reached an understanding on where the other stands."

Jon straightens. "Yes. It seems we have."

The Septon straightens his cloak. "Should you change your mind…"

"I wouldn't hold your breath lest you crave suffocation."

"And I wouldn't be so quick to account for the feelings of the future," the Septon warns. "Life is fluid and ever-changing."

Jon hears those words as a threat. He automatically starts forward towards the Septon, but Dany's hand wraps around his, yanking him to a stop. He can't get himself to pull away from her.

"Discuss amongst yourselves," Tyrion urges the Faith. "See if we can't find another alternative to this Right of Blessing. You can't possibly understand how sensitive matters of birth are for His and Her Grace…I know this _seems_ personal, but I assure you it is not…we _don't_ want animosity here between the crown and the faith. We will think, and— and you think— and we'll— we'll come together and—"

The High Septon turns and leaves before Tyrion has finished speaking.

"Hm," Dany comments. She cradles her belly, a few fine lines between her furrowed brow the only hint at her unease. "I think that was a resounding no to your proposal, Tyrion."

"They'll come around," Tyrion says. He looks deeply worried. "They will."

"Like Jon said before, I wouldn't hold your breath unless you want to suffocate," Davos chimes in. He looks at Jon, his expression one of incredulous frustration. "You couldn't just…play nicely?"

"I'm done playing nicely," Jon snaps. "You saw what he was trying to do. His thinly veiled threats, his manipulations…he has no right to even _ask_ to be present as the queen labors and births our son, much less attempt to strong-arm his way past our refusals. It was inappropriate."

"A war, too, will be inappropriate, when you've got a newborn to worry after," Davos growls. "Do you remember what you were like in Lyaella's first months of life? You could hardly bear to leave Daenerys and the babe for a half-hour, much less to go away to _battle_."

And Jon doesn't have much to say back to that, because it's true.

"They'll come around," Tyrion repeats. "Or you will. We can't have a war— not now. We'll find a way." Tyrion turns to look at Dany. His face softens immediately. He shuffles towards Daenerys, his hand landing gently on her forearm. "Don't worry about this, Your Grace. It's going to be fine. You should rest. Let me worry about this. I'll worry, and you…you just worry about the baby. I'll find a solution."

It's genuine and whole-hearted. Dany smiles because of that.

"I'm sure you will, Lord Tyrion. I have only faith."

Jon has only faith, too. And that's the problem. He could ask R'hllor about this— could ask for permission to let the Faith 'bless' Aemon— but that still doesn't solve the core problem: it's an invasion of privacy. An invasion of peace. And invasion against their family. He resolves himself to stand firm on this no matter what.

"Getting the priestesses in Essos to stop and condemn their own errant behavior will be a start," Davos murmurs. He rises. "I'm going to find Daario Naharis. Where did he say he was going?"

"He went to break fast, I believe," Tyrion provides. He stands. "I'll go with you. We can start drafting orders. Do you want to come, Your Grace?"

Dany shakes her head. "Jon and I have plans with Lyaella. Let us meet back here before supper to discuss specifics."

"Yes, Your Grace."

Jon waits until the room is empty except for him and Dany, and then he pulls her into his arms. He tucks her so close to him that he can count each and every heartbeat, his own heart swelling with intermingled love and pain. Doubts creep up on him then. _Have I made it worse for her rather than better? Have I let her down? Have I hurt her?_

"Dany…" the rest of his uncertain words crumble in his mouth.

"It was always going to be like this," Daenerys murmurs into his jerkin. "Always. They were never going to leave us unchallenged. We always suspected it, didn't we? We suspected the Faith would be a problem for us eventually as it often was for those who came before us. It's just unfortunate that this all must come to blows _now_."

"We'll get through it," he assures on instinct. "Tyrion's right. You and I need to focus on you and Aemon."

"And Lyaella. Aethel is expecting us within the hour," she reminds him.

He's been dreading the conversation all morning, but now, he looks forward to the distraction. He nods.

"Let's go collect our girl, then."

If there were ever any proof of R'hllor's innate goodness, it's Lyaella Targaryen. No evil god could bring someone so sweet into this world. Of that, Jon is certain.

III.

Lyaella is blooming with questions. They burst from her lips the instant she sinks her hands into theirs.

"Can Aemon see the sun, Mamma?"

Daenerys smiles. She squeezes Lyaella's hand affectionately.

"I like to think so. He always wriggles about when I'm in front of bright light, anyway. Why?"

Lyaella hops suddenly, tugging hard on Jon and Dany's arms as she does so. Both keep a hold of her hands even as she bounces between them, a smile lighting her face. Something, it seems, has excited her.

Jon laughs. "What?"

She turns her little face up to the sky. "Look! Look, 'cause— look, _Muver,_ please!" Dany hasn't looked up immediately; she's too busy admiring her beautiful little daughter's joyful radiance to care anything about the sun. But Lyaella's insistence wins her over, and she turns her eyes up towards the sky. "Mamma, it's _beautiful_."

 _It_ is _nice,_ Dany thinks at first. And it is. The sky's a soft blue reminiscent of fine powdered moonstone she'd once seen in Essos, the color soft and soothing as those soft pillows of powder had been. Scattered throughout the sky are puffs of pure-white clouds, as untouched and lovely as freshly-bloomed white roses. The sun is hiding behind one such cloud, and the brightness of it has surrounded that cloud in a deep golden ring that reminds Dany of glowing embers.

"It's very beautiful," Jon agrees, his voice soft.

Lyaella comes to a stop, drawing Jon and Dany to a standstill as well. Dany's still studying the sky, a smile tugging at her lips. Her chest is full with a growing feeling of wonder the longer she looks at it. Lyaella is right: it's beautiful. She hadn't noticed. She and Jon walked all the way here from the council chambers, and she hadn't looked up once.

"Can Aemon see?" Lyaella asks them again. She sounds equally curious and hopeful, and Dany has the urge to lie to her. He can't; Dany knows that. She thinks he can likely see the glow of the light— he reacts to brightness, anyway— but he certainly can't make out the perfect clouds or the pretty blue of the sky. But she wants to tell her that he can. She wants to tell her that he's enjoying this beautiful sky, too. This sky that was invisible to them until Lyaella saw it.

But she doesn't want to lie to her either. She and Jon have been dancing around truths, but they haven't _lied—_ not about Aemon, anyway. She doesn't want to start.

"He can see the glow of the sun," Dany tells her. "Some light gets through, I think. But he can't see like you and I see— not from inside me."

Lyaella considers that. She steps closer and leans against Dany, her hand reaching up to press to the side of Dany's stomach. Aemon shifts at her touch.

"He can hear me, though, and my _hawp_ ," Lyaella tells them. She states this and doesn't ask it, because she knows it to be true.

"Yes," Daenerys affirms. "He loves the sound of your voice, and he loves you. If you want to tell him all about the sky, he'll hear you."

And so she does. She chatters to Dany's belly the entire walk, describing the sky first, and then the scholarhouses they pass, and then the library, the sickhouses, the courtyards, the markets. She tells him about Daario, about her dreams last night, about training with Arya and Gendry, about Moonbloom and Frostfire and Silverstar. She tells him about Alysanne, about Aegon and his sisters, about their own sister Rhae, about all the books she's read and loved.

And Dany and Jon (and Aemon) listen. Dany feels nearly teary with affection come the end of her ramblings; she has to stop walking suddenly and kneel down to pull Lyaella into her arms. She holds her as tightly as she can, and Lyaella hugs her back just as fiercely.

"I love you, sweetling," she murmurs into Lyaella's soft curls. "You're such a wonderful girl. Do you know that?"

She wants her to always know it, to live by it, to never once doubt herself or her strength. But that's not an easy task in this world— especially as a girl.

"Yes," Lyaella smiles. "I love you so so so so _so_ much, Mamma, so much that— that— so much that it just— my chest feels— it feels _this_ big!"

She holds her arms out to the sides, and Dany hears Jon laugh. She smiles. For a moment in time after hearing that, everything in the world is perfect. She can't find one fear or worry. What is the High Septon in comparison to this joy?

"Oh, you're sweeter than figs and sweet cream," Dany teases. She kisses Lyaella's nose; Lyaella giggles. "Thank you, my love. My chest feels just as big."

Dany squeezes her gently in another hug. She feels her little hands settle on her belly afterwards; she cradles it tenderly.

"Mamma, when does Aemon come out?" she wonders.

Dany's beginning to feel unsteady— her legs are starting to shake, and her lower back feels taut with pain— so she rises carefully, accepting Jon's offered hand. She takes Lyaella's hand immediately after straightening, though.

"Two moonturns, maybe. We never know for certain when. When he's ready. That's all we can know," she explains.

Lyaella doesn't respond straightaway. Dany glances down at her as they resume their walk, but she's looking at her feet, so she can't study her grey eyes. She finds Jon's grey eyes instead. He hasn't missed Lyaella's sudden silence: he nods his head towards their daughter, and Dany frowns.

"Ly?" Jon questions. She doesn't look up at him, but she shuffles to the side and leans against his leg. They slow again. The moment Jon reaches down towards Lyaella, she throws herself into his arms. Dany feels her heart sting as she burrows into Jon's embrace.

"What is it?" she asks. She can't understand what's upset her. "Do you wish Aemon would come sooner? Two moonturns will fly by. He'll be here before you know it."

It doesn't comfort Lyaella, which is odd enough on its own. Nearly all she talks about these days is Aemon. It's another couple of minutes of walking before she finally offers them any sort of insight to her sudden anguish. She turns her face to the side and rests her cheek against Jon's shoulder, her grey eyes locking with Dany's concerned gaze. Dany's horrified to see tears shining in them. They're soaked storm clouds, and Dany hadn't even realized it was raining.

"I want you hold me," she murmurs, and it's so pitiful-sounding that it nearly breaks Dany's heart clean in two. Her mind changes gears entirely; she forgets where they're headed and turns, headed back the way they came. She retraces her steps a few paces and stops at a bench they'd passed by. As soon as she's sitting, Jon settles Lyaella into her lap, and Lyaella wraps her arms around her neck and promptly begins to cry.

Jon sinks onto the bench beside them, his hand landing on Lyaella's back at once.

"What…Lyaella?" he asks softly.

Lyaella's grip around Dany's neck tightens. "I-I-I don't w-w-want them to c-c-cut your b-b-belly! I l-love your b-b-belly, Mamma! Mamma, I d-d-d-don't— I d-d-don't— I scared— I don't l-l-like d-d-daggers!"

Dany's not certain what part of Lyaella's meltdown has disturbed her more. She and Jon share an alarmed look, equally taken aback.

"Lyaella, no one is cutting my belly. What are you talking about?"

"What _dagger_?" Jon demands, his tone sharp in his worry. The only dagger Dany can think of is the sapphire and ruby encrusted one that took her own life, and she's certain that's where Jon's thoughts have gone, as well. "Are you talking about what happened with Alysanne again? In the bathhouse when she was pregnant?"

"D-Daella and— and— and— and Nearys— and— and— and— my Rhaella— and—" she can't finish. She's growing more and more upset with each word she says.

Dany thinks she's beginning to understand. She knows something all three of those women have in common, anyway.

"They died having their babies. Is that what you're talking about?" she asks gently.

"T-They died w-w-when they got them out! When they cut them and their— their bellybuttons!"

Dany shakes her head, bemused. "They weren't cut. Is that what you're…" she trails off, realization dawning over her. She pulls Lyaella back by her shoulders and looks down at her damp face. "Lyaella, do you think they're going to cut Aemon out of my stomach?"

She has fat tears rolling down her face as she reaches a trembling hand forward. She touches Dany's bellybutton.

"They gonna cut here and I don't _want them to_!"

"No," Jon and Dany chorus at once. Lyaella turns and looks up at Jon, her eyes wide and searching. "No, no one's going to do that. That's not how babies get out. Why do you think that?"

"They say 'bed of blood, bed of blood'," she tells them, her eyes haunted.

Dany's not sure who 'they' is, but she's guessing she's speaking of her books.

"Blood doesn't always mean a cut or an injury," Dany promises her, though she understands why she assumed that. To her little mind, the only time one sees blood is when some injury is made to cause it.

"And it's— your bellybutton, Mamma, it's more bigger— so the baby can come out?"

Dany suppresses the sudden, inappropriate urge to laugh. She sets her hand over Lyaella's little one, still pressed over her bellybutton.

"That's not why," she reassures her. "My womb is just pressing against my bellybutton so much that it sort of pops out. That's all. The bellybutton isn't there to cut the babies out of. That's what ties you to your mother when you're inside _her_ belly…you were attached to me by a cord that came out from your own belly, just there—" she taps where Lyaella's bellybutton is hidden beneath her dress— "your Arya cut the cord from you after you were born."

Lyaella's eyes shimmer. "With a dagger?"

_No. The dagger was still buried in my heart._

"No, something else," Daenerys comforts her. She strokes her hair. "What's all this talk about daggers?"

Lyaella doesn't answer. She leans in and hides her face against Dany's neck. She sniffles. And Dany realizes then that the things Lyaella has imagined on her own have been far worse than the truth of it. If she's been fearing someone's going to take a dagger and slice her mother open, the truth of childbirth won't be that scary after all.

She kisses Lyaella's hair.

"No one's going to hurt me. Everything's going to be fine. We're going to talk to Aethel right now, and she's going to tell us all about how Aemon is getting out."

"Daella and Rhaella and Naerys—"

"So many horrible things happened to the women in our family, Lyaella," Dany tells her. "But that doesn't mean those things are going to happen to us. They _aren't_ going to."

She doesn't say that this particular worry of Lyaella's already _has_ happened to her. She doesn't want to frighten her, not when she's already clearly thinking about childbed death. Dany suddenly regrets ever letting her read that book Sam sent.

"'Cause Mamma— _Muver_ — Mother— I don't want to miss you all the time."

Dany's not sure what part does it— whether it's hearing _Mother_ for the first time or ' _I don't want to miss you_ '— but Lyaella's words cause tears to surge up her own throat. It's sudden and helpless: she can't do anything to stop the intensity of the emotion. Jon wraps an arm around her at once.

"You won't have to," Dany promises her thickly. All while thinking: _I don't want to have to miss you all the time, either. I can't leave you. I can't._ Dying this time would be horrific in new ways. "I'll always be with you. When you're three, six, nine, twelve— thirty— sixty— ninety. You're my heart."

She'd known that from the first moment she held her in her hands. Time has only intensified it.

Lyaella bows forward and kisses the top of Dany's belly. "They are not cutting you?"

" _No,"_ Dany promises her. "Nobody's cutting me."

Lyaella presses her face into her belly, hard enough that Aemon kicks in response. "I not— I won't let them, Mamma. I won't."

"I'm lucky to have you to protect me, then," Dany says softly. She leans over with some struggle and kisses the top of Lyaella's head. "Do you think Father would let someone hurt me?"

It's immediate: "No."

"So there's nothing to worry about."

Yet she worries. Dany reads it on her face their entire walk. She worries, and frets, and frowns. She doesn't stop until Aethel's giving them a full lecture, complete with book diagrams to reference and pore over. Dany holds Lyaella in her lap and looks on with her at illustrations of anatomy and birth, mindful to keep her tone cheerful as they talk. Lyaella brightens a bit with each minute that passes, until finally, she's smiling. Dany's not sure she's understood it all, but once again, she's underestimated her daughter.

"There's a door for the baby," Lyaella says happily. She twists and looks up at Dany. "That's very clever, I think."

Dany laughs at that, the sound choked with affection. She hugs Lyaella close.

"I suppose you're right."

"'Cause if they had to cut the mammas open, that would hurt so much, and they would bleed a lot, and they would have _sits-es,_ and then a big _star_ ," she muses. She touches Dany's breast gently, her fingers remembering the spot her scar is even when it's hidden underneath her silks. "Worse than this one."

"Probably," Dany agrees.

"And you don't have one on your belly. Not one of those _stars_."

"No," Dany agrees, smiling. "I don't have a scar there. Because nobody cut you out of me."

"I camed through the door," she says, satisfied. There's a curious pause. "Can you see Aemon down there?"

Even Aethel suppresses a laugh at that.

"No, the door is shut all the way until it's time for him to come," Aethel explains gently. "Or else he might come out too early before he's done growing."

Dany shifts Lyaella's weight slightly, trying to alleviate the pins and needles that have begun pricking in her thighs. Beyond Lyaella's glossy eyes and flushed cheeks, it'd be impossible to tell she was sobbing only minutes beforehand. She's entirely mesmerized now.

"Opening the door to let the baby out is difficult work," Aethel adds gently. "It can hurt a lot, and when it's time, your mother might be working hard at it for hours and hours, sometimes even days."

Lyaella considers that. "Is that why it's a bed of blood?"

"Yes and no. Blood isn't always bad. Blood keeps us all alive, doesn't it? It's here in your veins, see…" Aethel gently takes Lyaella's hand and turns it over, exposing her blue-green veins. And that fills Lyaella with a new type of wonder, one Aethel seems happy to indulge. Jon and Dany sit with her and look at a dozen new illustrations, these of veins and hearts and arteries, and by the time Aethel's done, Dany finds herself thinking she wouldn't be surprised if Lyaella one day decides to forego ruling for healing.

"Maybe if Aemon comes out very careful— so, so, so careful— it won't hurt you, Mamma," Lyaella says. She leans forward again and nuzzles her cheek over Aemon. "Be so careful, my baby Aemon, very careful, okay?"

Dany looks up at Jon at that; his face is split with a wide, tender smile. Her face is consumed with the same.

Dany kisses her hair. "It's okay if it hurts. It's just part of it. It's half-pain, half-love."

She expects Lyaella to be confused about that. To her, pain is just bad. It's something that comes after injury, something that needs to go away as soon as possible. But that's not what she focuses on.

"Did it hurt when I came out?" she asks curiously.

Dany's quiet after that. She's felt relaxed the entire conversation, but at that question, she feels her heart clamping shut. It occurs to her then that perhaps her and Jon's reluctance towards the topic of childbirth was less about the mechanics of birth itself and more about what would come after that revelation: Lyaella's questions about her own birth. To this day, she and Jon still haven't spoken to anyone about it. Arya was the one who filled Aethel in on the details of Dany's first birth, the one who filled Davos in, Tyrion in, Sansa in. Speaking of it to anyone is difficult; explaining it to Lyaella is worse.

"Yes," Dany finally answers, her tone measured. "It did. But I was so happy to have you here with me that it didn't even matter."

"Was I so, so, so careful?" she wants to know. She gazes hopefully at Dany.

"Oh, as careful as you could be, Lyaella," Dany assures her. She reaches forward and cradles her little face in her hands. Lyaella smiles as she kisses the corner of her lips. "You were the most perfect thing I had ever seen." _You still are._

She reaches up and touches Dany's hair. She pulls her fingers through it gently, her grey eyes searching Dany's.

"Did I make you bleed?"

Dany looks at Jon at that question. He swallows roughly. She can't be certain what he's seeing or thinking of, but she's remembering the sticky heat of the blood-saturated mattress beneath her body, the way it squelched as Jon lay beside her, the way she couldn't even lift her head.

"Yes," she says again, her voice softer now. "But I was already bleeding before that."

Lyaella turns her head to the side curiously. She reaches towards Dany's breast again, but Dany shakes her head.

"No. My hands," she admits.

Lyaella reaches for her hands at once. She lifts her right, unfurls her fingers, and stares at her palm. She touches the thick scar gently.

"I didn't do it?" she says softly. She sounds terribly worried.

"No, of course not," Dany assures her. She looks again at Jon. She feels conflicted. " _I_ did it."

"No. I did it," Jon counters, his voice gruff and tormented. Even after all this time.

"No. Bloodraven did it," Daenerys corrects. She won't let him take the blame for it. It doesn't matter how much time has passed; it wasn't his fault.

Lyaella is deeply troubled. " _Budraven_?"

The urge to change the subject is immense, and Daenerys knows Jon is as uncomfortable as she is. Perhaps more, considering he's the one who witnessed all of it. Daenerys knows that one day they'll tell Lyaella everything. She'll tell her about every horrible thing she saw in her dreams whilst pregnant with her, about everything that happened on the boat, about everything that happened after it. She knows, too, that one day, Jon and Lyaella will share in the truth of those three days they lived without her. The three days they were together against the world.

But not now. She can't do it. She can't look into Lyaella's soft eyes and tell her that she died birthing her. For so many reasons: she doesn't want Lyaella to fear history repeating itself when Aemon comes, and she doesn't want her to somehow blame herself. She wants her daughter to think of her as invincible, and if she knows she's died before, she might not.

She parts her lips to suggest they go to Moonbloom— usually the most reliable way to distract Lyaella's thoughts— but even as she goes to say the words, she just can't do it. Her daughter is hanging onto every word and every breath. And isn't this _her_ history as much as Dany's?

"I was fighting a battle when I had you," Dany says softly. "There was someone who was trying to hurt us."

Aethel rises from the table and heads over towards the small kitchen within her chambers, clearly feeling as if she's intruding on _this_ conversation. Jon moves closer to them, his hand settling on Daenerys's shoulder and his eyes chained on Lyaella's face. It's much harder for her to digest this than anything that came before it.

"Who? Why? A war?"

"Sort of," Dany says. "It was…someone the Great Other sent to hurt us."

Lyaella sits tall at that, her expression turning grave. "The Great Other is bad."

"Yes," Jon agrees softly. "And who he sent was bad. He— he went into our heads. He showed us terrible things. He tried to— he tried to make me do terrible things."

Jon's anguish is audible and obvious. Lyaella reaches up towards his face and touches his beard, her touch gentle.

"You didn't," she tells him, certain. "You're good. So good, Daddy."

He smiles at that. He brings her little hand to his lips and kisses her fingers reverently. "I didn't. But it was very frightening, Lyaella. You can't imagine how scary."

"I can," she tells them at once. "'Cause the Great Other is ice circles."

Dany and Jon look at each other at that, but they don't comment on it. Dany's not even sure where they'd start, and she doesn't want to get Lyaella worked up about her ice circles right now.

"He didn't want you to be born, but that didn't matter because _we_ wanted you to be born. We fought him, and we won, and now you're here," Dany smiles.

She waits for her to ask _how_ they won, already deciding she won't mention the dagger and won't mention her death. That— she is certain— is too much too soon for their little girl, who asked Daenerys dozens of times when she first felt Aemon's kicks if she had ever 'hurt her' when _she_ was inside her, who once trod accidentally on Cow One's hoof and cried for ten minutes in fear she'd hurt him. _One day,_ Dany thinks again. _One day, she'll know I love her more than my own life. She'll know I love her more than anyone ever could. Maybe she already does._

Again, though, Lyaella asks something different.

"Why did the bad— why didn't _Budraven_ want me to be borned?"

At that question, Dany and Jon lean in to kiss Lyaella's cheek, the synchrony unplanned. Dany turns her face slightly so her kiss will land on Lyaella's left cheek as Jon's lands on her right. Lyaella giggles at once, and Dany and Jon can't help but laugh along with her.

"Because you're _good_ , Lyaella," Dany finally says softly. "He knew what a great queen you'd one day be and how many people you'd help, and he didn't want that. Bad people want people to be unhappy and to suffer…he knew you would never want that."

She appears afraid again, though Dany's not sure why. She looks up at her father.

"Is he gone?"

"Bloodraven? Yes. Mother killed him to protect you."

Lyaella relaxes. "If he wasn't— if he was still here— he wouldn't want Aemon. He wouldn't want him to be borned. Because Aemon is a good king."

Dany parts her lips to correct Lyaella, but Jon beats her to it.

"You're the queen, Ly," he reminds her. "You're our heir. When we're no longer king and queen, you'll be queen. If you don't want it…then Aemon can be king, but—"

Lyaella interrupts them. "He's king too, _Fawder_." Her brow furrows as she looks between them, like she can't understand what they're saying. This turn in the conversation has confused her more than any other. "I'm the queen and Aemon is the king."

If their daughter appeared less adamant, Daenerys might assume that statement was simply another misconception gained from reading. But Lyaella looks certain. And that makes Dany feel uneasy. Though she had grown up in exile, largely cut off from her true heritage and history, even she had once been certain she would marry her brother. She trembles sometimes to imagine what that would have been like had it happened, if she'd wedded Viserys and become his queen. It would've been horrible. _But Aemon won't be like Viserys,_ she reminds herself. _I would never let him be._ She wonders what Lyaella has seen to make her sound so certain, or if maybe it _is_ just her preconceptions about Targaryens based on what she's read. _That's likely it. She's likely just connected all the brother-sister marriages she's read about with her own family. That's all._

"It's been that way for our family in the past," Jon agrees. "But you'll be free to marry whomever you want when you grow up, Lyaella. And _they'll_ rule with you."

"I want _Buver_ to rule with me," Lyaella says. There's no hesitation. "'Cause he has a _dagon_ and he is like me."

Daenerys feels Jon's gaze weighing on the profile of her face. She turns and meets his eyes. She matches his frown. Right then, she's thinking about the Faith, and what trouble they would likely face if they even heard Lyaella say that. Doctrine of Exceptionalism or not— they wouldn't be pleased.

"He can be your best friend, and he can be as involved in your rule as you'd like," Jon assures her.

Lyaella nods, smiling. "And he can be the king."

Daenerys reaches out and pokes Lyaella's tummy gently. Lyaella falls into predictable giggles. "You're getting a bit ahead of yourself, Ly. You haven't even met him yet. He might annoy you to tears. You might be ready to cast him from King's Landing the moment you're coronated."

Lyaella laughs harder at that. "No!" she smiles, like Dany's just made some hilarious joke. "He's my best best _fend_. He's so nice, Mamma."

"Well," Jon says. He and Dany share another quick look. She can read in his eyes that he's ready to let this go for now, and she is too, if only because she's not really sure how she feels about it yet. She doesn't want to respond in the wrong way, but she isn't sure how she _should_ respond. "Let's focus on getting Aemon here first, shall we? I think Mother needs something to eat. It's been nearly _two hours_ since she's eaten last!"

Lyaella's brow furrows. "That's too long, Mamma." She could almost sound stern if her voice weren't so sweet. She slides off Dany's lap and takes her hand, pulling incessantly. "Come on, let's go eat! Let's eat in our family Garden! 'Cause I made a paper flower for Rhaella…"

She trails off and begins searching the pockets of her violet dress. She makes a sound of discovery as she withdraws a slightly-smushed paper flower.

"Oh," she says, her face falling some as she smooths the creased petals. "Well…it's still _pity_ 'cause I made it with love. It says 'to Rhaella, from Lyaella', and that's a rhyme."

"It's a fine rhyme, it's simply sublime," Jon quips, and Lyaella throws herself at him giggling.

"Daddy! That was so good! That was _so_ good!" she praises.

Jon laughs along with her and pats her back. She releases his leg and bounces ahead of them as they walk towards the kitchens to request a basket to take to the Memorial Gardens, singing rhymes beneath her breath the entire time. Dany deliberately walks slower than normal so that she and Jon can remain out of earshot.

"Thanks for that subject change, by the way. I'm not even hungry yet, and since you told her I haven't eaten in two hours, she's going to pack my plate."

Jon wraps an arm around her waist and fights back a smile. "I'll eat whatever you can't."

Dany looks up at him. She touches his jaw, drawing his gaze down to meet hers. She takes advantage of their brief opportunity to speak semi-alone.

"Do you think she…saw something? In the fire? Something to make her say that. About Aemon being king."

"I don't know," he admits quietly. A line appears between his eyebrows as he purses his brow. "The worst thing was that I wasn't even sure how to respond. It's not something I expected her to say. And it's not something I'd ever want…but _we're_ related. And it's different, I know, it's different…but will it seem that different to her? If she and Aemon grow up…and that's what they…" he trails off, his expression twisting. "Gods, Dany, I can't even think about it long enough to decide how we should feel. I know it happened all the time. I know it was custom. But I didn't grow up that way, and it's very different to read about it happening between ancestors you don't know and to think about your own _children_ …" he stops. "I can't accept that they'd feel that way. That they would want that."

Relief flows through Dany. She feels he's voiced some of what she couldn't put into words, and she's grateful for it. "I _did_ grow up that way, but even I feel uncomfortable thinking about it. Or perhaps frightened. Because I keep thinking…marrying Targaryen men more often than not led to misery for Targaryen women. I believe I'm one of the few exceptions. Is that something that _should_ be carried on? We're all that's left of our house...we get decide what things continue and what things don't. But at the same time…well…it's been the way of things for our family since the start. And the dragons are back now, and that's something we must take into consideration…oh, I don't know, Jon. I know we'd never force her into any sort of marriage—"

"No. Not ever," Jon agrees, his tone fierce.

"But I suppose I never considered whether we would one day have to _forbid_ marriages."

It sits uneasily with her. The idea of telling Lyaella who she can and can't marry. How can she explain to her that it's no longer acceptable when that's what their family is built on? When that's what, in a lot of ways, led to their own existence? When, as far as they know, that's what's enabled them to share their lives with their dragons— what will continue to allow them to share their lives with dragons?

"I don't think she means it as it sounds," Jon finally says. "We hear 'I want him to be king' and we think marriage. But she never said that. She just said she wanted him to rule with her. She's a baby; she doesn't know what a marriage really is or what it really means. She just means she wants him at her side, and there's nothing wrong with that. Who's to say they _can't_ rule together even if they marry other people? It's never happened before…but a lot of things we've experienced have never happened before."

Her stomach unknots. She exhales deeply, her shoulders relaxing. "Yes," she says, and the more she thinks about it, the better she feels. She feels Aemon twist within her, and she tells herself it's him agreeing with Jon. She rubs fondly over his movements and nods. "They could. If they wanted to. The _three_ of them could, couldn't they? Lyaella, Aemon, and Rhae. A ruling trio. They could do that. Like Aegon and his sisters…but different, too."

"Only if they get on as well as Lyaella seems to think they will," Jon muses. "I wouldn't like to witness _those_ small council fights if all three rule and all three disagree."

 _No,_ Dany thinks. _There have been plenty of Targaryens against Targaryens. No more._ She doesn't believe it would be like that, though.

"You and I rule equally, and it hasn't been a problem," she points out. She leans closer to him. "But you and I are the same."

"They'll be the same, too. Lyaella even said that, didn't she? She said Aemon's like her. She's right."

Dany thinks about that for the rest of the walk. She remembers how drawn she'd felt to Jon from the start; she hadn't even known he was her blood then, but some part of her must've. Or was it a coincidence that he's her blood— happenstance that the one her soul is tied to is also her family? Could she have been happy with someone else? She thought she was happy with Daario, but now, looking back, that brief happiness is nothing but a feeble spark in comparison to her current inferno.

She feels Jon take her hand again. She wonders if he's aware of the conflicting thoughts twisting like snakes through her mind. She squeezes his hand gently, and she thinks… _Have we evolved to want each other?_ _Are we simply the only ones suited for each other? What will it mean for our children if it's true?_ There were so many of her female ancestors that were married to their male counterparts by force, not choice. But now that force is taken out of things…what will choice dictate? And will she and Jon be able to let free choice remain free, or will they have to exert limits and rules and exceptions? _You can marry anyone you want…except…_

It's still better than what she heard as a young girl: _you will marry this person, no exceptions._ And yet…had someone tried to stop her from marrying Jon…

 _It's different,_ Jon had said. His words replay in her mind. _It's different. I know it is._ It was. It is. Yet…if things had been different…if she and Jon had grown up together... _would_ it really be so different? She doubts it. She can't imagine a reality where she doesn't want him. She can't imagine it.

She eats most of her food at lunch, but she hardly tastes it.

IV.

She's missing Drogon terribly that evening, so she attempts to brave the Dragon Pit. Her dragons would never harm her on purpose, but the young ones are still excitable and rough; though they've never hurt her, her rounded middle feels too protruding to keep entirely safe from whacks and bumps, and for that reason, she elects to wait just outside the pit until Jon and Lyaella have taken to the skies on Storm. The other three take after them as they always do, but Drogon remains. Dany's certain he knows she's waiting just outside for him.

Arya and Grey Worm chat a couple paces behind her as Daenerys meets Drogon in the middle of the pit. He sniffs first at her scalp, and then at her stomach, the deep tremor of his contented rumbling rushing warmly through Dany's bones. She holds onto his scales and eases down to sit against him, his wing a hovering warmth over her shoulders like some massive, shielding coverlet. She rests her cheek against his scales and closes her eyes, her hands cradling her belly affectionately and her body flooded with love. She feels full in the best way.

"Have they been behaving?" she murmurs to Drogon. His responding huff sounds almost exasperated. "No, I should think not. They're feeding off Lyaella's excitement."

All of them— especially Frostfire— have been almost jittery lately. They've amused the people of Flea Bottom with their aerial 'play-dance-fights' (as Lyaella's dubbed them), and Moonbloom and Frostfire had the nerve to land atop the library that evening and roar down at passerbys until they were thrown bits of food. The people were quite amused to see their king strolling down the street to scold the two greedy dragons.

Drogon, though, remains unaffected by Lyaella's impatient joy. He's calm and steady.

"You're used to this by now, aren't you?" she asks him fondly. "You're becoming an expert at this. I wish the little ones were the same."

Lyaella has told them time and time again that Frostfire will be Aemon's dragon, and Dany's certainly found no reason to doubt that based on Frostfire's recent behavior. He's almost eerily interested in her belly, his enthusiasm so great he nearly knocked her onto her bottom a number of times earlier in her pregnancy. It's another reason she's waited for him to be gone before entering; if she got knocked on her bottom now, she doubts she'd be able to get back up without assistance.

She rests there with both her sons, feeling sleepy and content as she listens to Arya and Grey Worm's laughter. They're talking about Aethel— or, rather, Arya is attempting to tease Grey Worm about Aethel, but he is nearly impossible to tease. He's unabashed and honest.

"Well, I like Aethel," Arya finally says. "She saved my life. Not many people can say that about their friends' lovers."

 _I could,_ Dany thinks, and for a moment in time, she can smell Missandei's hair and feel the warmth of her skin as she embraces her. There were times in her life when Missandei's love and loyalty made all the difference. Times when, had she not been there, Dany's not certain how she would've continued on. It makes her heart ache and her eyes burn to think of it, but sometimes, she wants to tell Lyaella that Missandei was one of the first people to ever love her. She _was_ the first person to set her hand on Dany's belly, and in many ways, she was the one who made Lyaella _real_. And Lyaella never got the chance to know her.

She's truly happy for Grey Worm. Happy that he's found comfort in Aethel, happy that he's finally reached a place of _peace._ But sometimes, when she sees Grey Worm walking beside Aethel, she has to look twice to process the sight of another woman beside him.

Her eyes drift closed, the heat of Drogon immensely soothing. His happy rumbles build at the back of his throat, rolling like peals of thunder. In that comfortable, happy moment, she considers sleeping right here all night long.

"Do you feel all right?"

Arya's question grasps onto her mind and pulls it reluctantly from the softness of sleep. She's been so tired lately…she thinks about ignoring Arya and shuffling further beneath Drogon's wing, but the concern in Arya's tone is audible, and when her fingers grace the back of Dany's hand, she realizes she's taken her affectionate hold on her belly as cause for concern.

"Yes, I'm fine. I'm just tired," she admits.

She senses Arya growing nearer, and a moment later, Grey Worm, too. When she lifts her eyelids, she can't help but smile at the sight of them sitting right in front of her. They're entirely at ease this close to Drogon, and that familiarity fills Dany's chest with warmth.

"You look it," Arya admits. "Do you want to go back?"

"No, I want to stay here," she yawns. "Just until Jon and Lyaella get back. You two don't have to stay, though."

She's certain they've got better things to do, but despite her expressing that, neither make a move to leave. Dany would've been genuinely surprised if they had.

"How was Gendry's arm?" she asks them sleepily. "Aethel looked at it again this morning, didn't she? Did her salve work?"

"Almost too well. He's feeling stupidly smug," Arya complains. "He's at the fucking forges as we speak."

"If he burns that same spot again so soon it won't heal well the second time," Grey Worm says. It's likely Aethel's warning he's repeating.

"Yeah, I told him that, Aethel told him that, you told him that, and Yara told him that. You see how well he's listened. He's making a dagger for the princess. Why she needs a dagger when she's already got a sword, even _I_ don't—"

"What? A dagger?" Dany interrupts. She sits up straight. Parted from Dragon's heat, she feels a chill race down her spine.

"Yeah. You must've told her about the one he made you…before, you know." Arya's words sever abruptly, and the three of them sit in a brief silence. She clears her throat. "She was asking him all about it."

Dany feels so uneasy that her heart begins to race. Her child squirms and rolls, his movements so restless it makes Dany want to get up and pace. She forces herself to remain seated, and she counters her agitation by focusing on breathing slowly.

"When was this?"

"This morning. When you and Jon were with the Septon. How did that go, anyway?"

"The Septon didn't look happy," Grey Worm shares. "I escorted him out of Rhaella's Fortress. He didn't say a word to the men with him, but his face said plenty."

Dany doesn't want to talk about the Septon right then. She wants to know exactly what Lyaella said about the dagger. She tries to remember what she'd said about it earlier…she'd mentioned _a_ dagger, but Dany hadn't thought she meant any particular one…if she meant the sapphire-and-ruby encrusted one that Gendry made for Dany, where did she hear of it? And why would she want one?

"What did Lyaella say about the dagger? Arya, I've never told her about that."

Arya's brow furrows. She looks at Grey Worm.

"Did you—"

"Never," he swears at once. "Could you have mentioned it before while training with her? Maybe she asked if her mother ever trained and you mentioned it, or maybe Gendry told her about it before."

"I haven't. I know I haven't," Arya insists firmly. "But maybe Gendry has. Lyaella's been to the forges with him plenty of times…perhaps he mentioned it passively while working. She seemed to know about _that one_. She said she needed the dagger with sapphires and rubies. She asked me where it was. I told her I didn't know…and then Gendry told her he'd make her one of her very own."

That only elevates Dany's confusion.

"Why would she need that dagger? Why would she even care where it is?"

"Perhaps she thinks it sounded pretty," Grey Worm suggests. "She loves pretty things, and if she heard it had sapphires and rubies in it…"

"She must not have heard that it killed her mother," Arya mutters. She pauses to rummage in her pocket; she pulls out a tiny cloth bag. Dany knows it's candied ginger before she even opens it: the sweet and spicy scent is obvious. "I dropped it into the sea. I don't even remember where."

She offers the bag to Grey Worm and Dany. Grey Worm takes a piece, but Dany doesn't, fearing the sugar will make Aemon even more fidgety than he already is. And currently, it feels like she has a belly full of snakes.

"She mentioned a dagger earlier today, too," Dany shares with them. She smoothes her hand over her stomach as she talks, but that does little to soothe Aemon. "Arya, can you ask Gendry tonight whether he told her about it?"

"If I let him in my bed," she mutters. She rummages within the tiny cloth bag, searching intently for some piece of candied ginger in particular. "If he's burnt himself again, he can sleep on the boat."

"I'll believe that when I see it," Grey Worm mutters to Dany. She smiles, but it's feeble. "You look worried."

She is. Right then, she's not even sure where to start. It's hard to determine what it is that's worried her most. Is it Lyaella's sudden interest in the dagger she'd plunged into her own heart? Is it the comment Lyaella made about Aemon being king? Is it the High Septon and his threats? Is it childbirth? Is it Essos?

It's all of it. And she feels too weary right then to attempt to explain any of it. Instead, she reaches out and takes Grey Worm's hand in hers. He's still as she drags his hand over and presses it to her belly; he's well aware of how sensitive she is about any touch to her middle. As soon as his hand is pressed firmly to the center of her belly, his eyebrows rise.

"The _baby_ is worried," he corrects himself. "Is that normal?"

"He doesn't like it when I'm stressed."

"What are you stressed about? This Septon?" Arya demands. "Don't be. You're making the right choice. I know it might not feel like it with both Tyrion and Davos against it, but it _is_. Don't you think so, Grey Worm?"

"Yes," he says, without hesitation. He pats Dany's belly gently before moving his hand back into his lap. "I don't trust him. I never have. I don't like the way he looks at you. He thinks you're young and weak. He's trying to coerce you, and he's taking advantage of your current vulnerability."

It's the first Dany's heard of this particular opinion. She gazes at him and finds herself wishing he'd said this sooner. Knowing he has his own reasons to distrust the Septon would've made both her and Jon more certain in their decision from the start.

"Jon intends to go to war before he intends to let the Septon in."

"Then I intend to fight at his side," Grey Worm says firmly. And it should comfort her, but it doesn't. Instead, she feels as if her stomach has been flipped inside out.

Words fall from her lips, heavy and pained. She wasn't even aware of their existence, but as soon as she speaks them, she realizes they've been gnawing at the pit of her stomach all day long. She's just been afraid to view them in the light.

"I can't do it," she says. The truth of it brings heat to her eyes. "I don't want a war. In fact, that's the last thing I want. I don't have the energy for it. Not now."

"Then it won't come to that," Arya says at once, but maybe she can see how Dany's eyes are burning, because she stops speaking at once and waits. Dany looks down at her stomach and tries to inhale deeply against the pressure building up her throat— it's sudden and unexpected, born from half-sorrow and half-exhaustion, and she feels even worse when she realizes she can't stop it from overtaking her. It doesn't help that she can't seem to inhale fully: Aemon has moved into a position that has her feeling breathless, like his bottom is pressed up against her diaphragm. She thinks she'd feel better if she could breathe easier, or even if she could just express what she's feeling. But she doesn't know how to explain it to them. She only knows that, in that moment, she's made of fear and fear alone. She fears the High Septon being in the birthing chambers— but she fears what will happen if he's not. She fears letting him walk over her, and what that will mean in the future— but she fears what will happen if there is a war. If Jon fights. If Jon _dies_ …

Drogon huffs in concern. He shuffles and twists to look at Dany, his snout bumping gently against her hair. His breath is a heated gust of wind against her face; it dries up the tears that have begun to fall at once.

"You are exhausted, Your Grace," Grey Worm tells her gently. "That is all. Things will seem much better after a long rest."

"A long rest won't make the conflict with the Faith go away," she points out. Right then, it feels as if nothing will.

"I'll make it go away," Arya swears. "I'll kill the Septon if I have to."

"No," Dany says, her heart twisting in her chest. "I don't want you to do that. That will only make things worse." _And you don't have to kill for anyone anymore. Not ever again._

"Then I won't do that. I'll do something else."

"And I'll help," Grey Worm adds. "No matter what it is. You know that."

Dany closes her eyes and begins regaining her composure. _Falling apart now won't fix anything,_ she tells herself. _All the queens who came before me must've had moments when they felt like this. They got through it. I'll get through it. I have to get through it._

She opens her eyes and looks back at them. Their concern is easy to read. It soaks Arya's grey eyes in particular.

"You're right," she tells Grey Worm. She smiles thinly. "I _am_ tired."

He nods at her middle. "I should think you are. You should go to bed as soon as the king and princess return."

"I intend to," she agrees.

She doesn't want to talk about it anymore. Thankfully, Arya senses that.

"Come on." Arya shifts onto her knees and holds her hands out. Dany takes them automatically. "My nephew doesn't like all that worrying, so let's stop for his sake and go get mint cakes. It'll be a while yet until Jon and Lyaella return."

Dany smiles. She complies with the gentle pull on her hands and lets Arya help her to her feet. Arya twines her fingers with Dany's, and Grey Worm walks so close to her side that she can feel his warmth, and Dany feels lighter. She knows nothing has been solved, but she feels comforted anyway. Simply because she's loved.

V.

The next two weeks brings news of the windows in the Red Temple being broken, a noticeable increase in Aemon's size, and a long put-off conversation. Jon sits in the sun with Dany while Lyaella finally showcases her drawing of her 'night circles', his thoughts fractured into three different places: there with Lyaella, here with Dany, and on the issue of the Faith. It's been the customary three-part split lately.

"And all this is blood?" Tormund demands. He turns Lyaella's drawing, his eyes studying the spiral made up of dismembered parts. "That's fucking morbid."

"What's _more-bid_?" Lyaella asks curiously.

"Something dark," Tormund answers. "Like a two-year-old drawing dismembered creatures in the snow."

"I not— I'm not two. I'm four almost. That's two twos. Two and then two more, and that's four."

"Yeah, I'm not sure that makes it much better," Tormund quips. Jon's parting his lips to snap at Tormund for picking on Lyaella during such a serious conversation, but Dany sets a restraining hand on his thigh, and he understands quickly enough. Tormund's lighthearted teasing is keeping Lyaella from shutting down as quickly as she normally does when the drawing is brought up.

"Why did you draw this?" Tormund asks her. "Did you run out of waterfalls and dragons to draw? I saw all the ones you have plastered in Rhaella's Fortress."

"It's my ice circles," Lyaella explains. She leans over Tormund's lap and points at the paper. "I saw in my dreams, and Aemon and Rhae and me, we see the ice circles. They're bad, Tormud."

"Yeah, you're not kidding," Tormund agrees. He looks up then and meets Jon's eyes. They share a deep frown, one that edges Jon's heart towards his stomach, despite the comforting feeling of Aemon moving about beneath his hand or Dany's lips pressing to his shoulder. "Do you know who made these ice circles, Lyaella?"

"The _saves_ ," she says immediately. "They got the horn and it…it…"

Jon feels his stomach flip at the sight of Lyaella's glassy eyes. She turns from Tormund and squirms off the bench, crossing over to the one right across from it where Jon and Dany are sitting. Jon opens his arms and receives her, his hand smoothing her 'like Daddy' hairstyle as he cradles her to his chest.

"What is it?" he asks her quietly.

"I want to pay the _hawp_ for my baby Aemon," she murmurs. She rubs her face against his jerkin, likely washing away her budding tears and snot.

"I would love for you to do that— in just a few minutes though, okay?" Dany says. "We'd all really like to hear more about the ice circles and the horn—"

Lyaella cringes so violently into Jon's embrace that he thinks she's been struck for a horrible, confused moment in time. But she hasn't; she's clamping her hands over her ears, her body twisting in pain in response to something they can't hear. Jon hoists her up into his lap and cradles her desperately, genuine nausea climbing up his throat at the sight of her visible discomfort.

"What, Ly?" he asks, panic woven through his words.

Her crying gains intensity. "I w-w-want my _hawp_! I w-want my _p-p-pity_ _hawp_ sound! It hurts my heart, Mamma, and all my bones— I want— I want to not hear it— Rhae and Silverstar can't hear it— the _saves_ got it and—and— I want to go to napping time, Daddy!"

"I thought you wanted to go play the harp?" Jon asks. He understands quickly though that she doesn't really know what she wants: she just doesn't want _this_. She's searching to feel better, her torment at the topic undeniable as it is worrying. Jon can't make sense of her ramblings. "What horn, Lyaella?"

"I'm _hungy, Fawder_ ," Lyaella whines. "I'm really really _hungy,_ can we go, please? Please, can we go eat, _Fawder_? Please?"

"We're talking with Tormund right now, sweetling," Daenerys reminds her. "In a moment."

Lyaella turns and moves towards her mother, so senseless in her search for comfort that she forgets to be careful. As she climbs up onto Dany's lap, she accidentally knees the bottom of her belly; Dany flinches and shoots her hands out to grasp at Lyaella's upper arms and move her back, and Jon feels his heart lurch.

"Lyaella, you've got to be careful," he reminds her, his voice a bit harder than he intended. "Are you all right, Dany?"

Dany nods, but her response is drowned out by the sound of Lyaella's immediate hysterical wails.

"Ly—"

" _I-I-I-I hurt my b-b-b-baby A-A-Aemon! I-I-I hurt m-my b-b-buver!"_

"No—"

" _I'm n-n-naudy!"_ She folds forward and buries her tear-soaked face into Dany's belly. She wraps her arms around her and clings. "I-I-I-I sorry, baby! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, _Buver_! Mamma, I'm sorry— it was an _axdent_ — are you okay, Mamma?"

Lyaella lifts her face from Dany's stomach. Jon sees dark patches on the amethyst fabric of her dress from Lyaella's tears. They continue to stream down Lyaella's face; her anxiety consumes her whole. She's even _trembling_ , Jon realizes. With each quiver, her soft silver curls bounce and brush against her cheeks, causing more and more tendrils to stick to her wet face. Jon leans over and gently pries her hair off her cheeks. He's wiping her tears away as Dany leans in and kisses Lyaella's nose, her forehead, and then— gently— over each closed eye. Jon wipes a few more tears away as they continue rolling down her face.

"I'm _fine,_ Lyaella," Daenerys assures her. "And your brother's fine, too. He's just rolled, in fact. Look, you can even see where his bottom is, it's pressing out just here— do you see? He's fine."

Lyaella presses a featherlight touch to the slight bulge near the center-left of Dany's belly.

"I'm sorry," she repeats, her words a guilty whisper. Jon understands that those words are just for Aemon this time.

"He forgives you," Dany consoles. "Come here, sweetling."

Lyaella continues to cry as Dany cradles her to her bosom, but Jon thinks she's probably crying more about her earlier upset than what happened with her mother's stomach.

"I see what you mean," Tormund mutters to Jon. He's watching Lyaella's outburst with a frown. "Something's going on, all right. The itty Dragon Queen is never like this."

"We'll talk later," Jon promises. "I think it'd do Lyaella good to have a snack and a nap."

"I w-w-want to, Daddy," Lyaella says at once. "I want to with you and M-M-Mamma."

"I'd quite like a snack and a nap, too," Dany assures Lyaella. "We'll ask Davos to clear our schedule for the afternoon. How's that, my love?"

Lyaella nods tearfully. She turns to face Jon and reaches up for him. He pulls her into his arms and then stands, propping her on his hip. She rests her damp face against his shoulder and yawns.

"I'm sorry, Tormund," Daenerys apologizes. Tormund holds his hands out for Dany and helps her up; Jon feels a thrill of gratitude. "Let's try again at supper."

"There's no rush, Daenerys," Tormund reassures her. "I'll be here a bit longer. When Lyaella's ready to talk, Lyaella will."

They walk back to Rhaella's Fortress, Lyaella sleepily playing with Jon's curls they entire trek. _I don't think she's likely to ever want to talk about it,_ Jon thinks. That worry seems incredibly founded the rest of the afternoon; it takes much longer than it usually does to get her acting like herself again. But finally, after a plate of figs, two mugs of honeyed milk, a warm bath with her mother, and probably two dozen hugs a piece from both parents, she seems cheerful again. She sits in Jon's lap and reads _Remnants of the Dragonlords_ to them as Jon gently combs her wet hair, stopping every sentence or two to ask questions or chatter on about what she's read. Dany curls up on the bed beside them, her hand idly stroking her belly as she listens to Lyaella with closed eyes; by the time Jon's finished pulling the comb through the silver waves of Lyaella's hair, Dany's deeply asleep, her forehead resting against his hip.

"Mamma's _seepy_ ," Lyaella whispers fondly. She leans over in Jon's lap and reaches down to gently stroke Dany's damp hair. "I can comb Mamma's?"

"Let's let Mamma sleep," Jon murmurs. "You can help her with her hair when she wakes."

"Okay," Lyaella says. Jon tucks her hair gently behind her ears, waiting for her to resume reading again. When she doesn't, he glances down at her to find her still watching Dany. She voices her thoughts before he has to ask. "Mamma's belly is bigger-er all the time."

Jon smiles. "Yes. It'll keep getting bigger until Aemon is here."

"Aemon is coming out in the bathtub. Mamma said."

"Yes," Jon agrees, wondering where Lyaella is going with this. "Were you and Mother talking about that earlier? About the birth?"

"Yes, _Muver_ says I am her special girl. I read to her and bring her snacks and _pay_ my _hawp_ for her. 'Cause I make her feel better and not-scared, and when she's getting Aemon out, when she needs me, she's gonna tell Auntie Sansa to bring me to her right away." Lyaella couldn't sound prouder if she tried.

Jon had to leave momentarily while they were bathing to sign a few documents for Lord Tyrion, and he assumes the topic of the birth was brought up then. He's glad he wasn't there: he's certain his nervousness would've impacted the way Lyaella felt about the conversation, and maybe Dany, too. He's glad they were able to talk about it together, and it sounds as if Dany's already shared most of the details about what they decided regarding Lyaella. She's done a better job wording it than Jon would've, too; when they discussed it, they had decided to allow Lyaella in so long as Dany's able to hold a conversation with her and not alarm her. For Lyaella's own sake, they agreed she shouldn't be in there for the worst of it— not only because the sight of her mother in agony would deeply upset her, but because they can't know what's going to happen, and considering Dany's history with her previous complicated births, they can't risk Lyaella witnessing something deeply traumatic. Jon had wondered aloud how they could remove her from the room during the worst of it without her panicking and assuming she's being led out because something is wrong with her mother, but Dany's already figured it out. Instead of framing it to Lyaella as 'you can stay until it's too scary', she's framed it as 'when I need you, I'm going to have you bought to me straightaway.' It appears to have made Lyaella feel important, and that's what Dany wanted her to feel. _Pride makes us braver,_ she'd told Jon. _I want her to feel brave. I don't want her to be afraid._

Jon kisses her hair. "We'll both be very happy to have you there with us."

"'Cause you're scared," Lyaella says wisely.

How can he refute that? He's certain she can read it on his face as clearly as if he'd said it aloud.

"Yes," Jon admits. "I am." _Extremely so, in fact._

She looks up at him and touches his beard gently. "Don't be scared _, Fawder._ I love you with my whole _life!"_

Jon laughs. He hugs her tight. "Your whole _life_?"

"Yes, for always, Daddy. And don't be scared because Aemon is fine and Mamma is fine. I sawed that so much times."

Jon kisses her scalp. He lets his face rest there affectionately for a moment afterwards.

"In the flames?" he clarifies.

"Yes, and my dreams."

She's so relaxed, so confident and sure…if ever he could get answers, it would be now. So he steels himself and tries.

"And is that where you see the horn and the dagger?"

There's a slight pause, but beyond burrowing snugly into his embrace, she doesn't react in any way that immediately concerns him.

"Yes, like the ice circles. But the horn isn't with the ice circles yet."

"No? Where is it?"

"It's with the dagger. The _pity_ one that Gendy made. Where is it, _Fawder?"_

Jon frowns. For a moment, all he can see is the bloody dagger resting in Arya's lap. Her shaking hands tossing it into the sea.

"The bottom of the sea," Jon admits. He doesn't tell her why. "How is the horn with it?"

Lyaella shrugs. She yawns soon after. "It's bad."

"The horn?"

She nods.

"What does it do?"

"It _hurts_ …oh, it hurts so much, _Fawder._ And it…it _gelds_ ," she tells him softly. She shifts closer, her ear finding its rightful home over his heart. She yawns deeper this time. "Can I have my song?"

Part of him wants to keep her awake and ask a hundred questions, but his love is greater than his curiosity.

"Which one? The new one?"

"Yes. For me and Aemon."

It's one of the few _he'd_ made up; its lyrics are little more than a winding repetition of his love for his two children. It lacks the creativity and flow of the songs written by the performers of King's Landing, and it doesn't help matters that he'd come up with it first after too much ale. Still, despite the fact that it's deeply unimaginative, Lyaella asks for it nearly every night.

He reclines with her and finds the repetitive words easily. He strokes through her hair as she drifts to sleep as easily as Dany did. When his song drifts off, and he's certain his daughter is truly asleep, he carefully rests her on the mattress beside Dany, tucks the covers over them, and journeys over to the fireplace. He sparks a fire; as he kneels in front of the growing flames, he pleads rather than inquires. _I don't know why you're sending Lyaella this information about the horn and not me. There's not a problem in this world I won't fix for her. This isn't Lyaella's fight. It's never been, and it never will be. It's mine. Leave her be— unveil the future for me, and I'll fight it as I always have._

He's certain R'hllor knows exactly what he's asking, but when he does unveil the future, all Jon sees in the flames are flashes of his laughing children.

VI.

Daario's been in King's Landing for an entire moonturn before he's invited to feast alone with the queen and her family.

He's joined them for their evening meal a few nights a week, but it's been at a long communal table with other important people— small council members or visitors, whichever happened to be visiting at that particular time. This is the first time he's been invited to join them in the courtyard outside Rhaella's Fortress. He can only assume the summons means he's soon to be sent back to Essos. And that's fine, in all honesty: he's had his fill of Westerosi women, he's gained quite a few notches in his belt from the rich foods, and he longs for home. He never imagined he'd be bored around Daenerys Stormborn, but nothing interesting happens in King's Landing unless one is interested in reading in the sun, visiting maesters, or planting crops, which Daario is not. The most interesting thing that's happened here in the past month has been the vandalizing of the Red Temple and a couple demonstrations by angry Septons, but even that fizzled out rather quickly into passive-aggressive council meetings with the Faith and empty threats.

That _boredom_ is precisely why he feels Daenerys is wasted here. He looks around daily at the prosperity, and all he can think about is the struggling back in Essos. He spent a day in the audience chamber to observe a week into his visit, and he had been disgusted by the types of frivolous concerns brought to the queen. Complaints of thieving relatives, loud neighbors, slightly stale bread or bruised fruits, long queues outside sickhouses. The complaints were many, and all were stupid. As he watched Daenerys take complaint after complaint, all he could think was _what a waste. What a fucking waste._ A conqueror sat in a wooden chair listening to privileged citizens whine about rye bread, with a vast world out there left to be conquered. With a whole continent needing her return in order to stay liberated. And she's here. Playing proper Targaryen queen with her proper Targaryen king. She plays it well, Daario would never begrudge her that. But she's more than that. He hasn't yet decided if her King Jon knows and appreciates that; it's obvious that he adores and loves her, but that affection is oftentimes so doting Daario wonders if he knows her as Daenerys Stormborn or just as 'Dany.' Does he know her as a conquerer or just as the mother of his children?

And he's sure the king's view isn't the only warped one. Daenerys loves her little princess so much that Daario is certain, in her eyes, _mother_ is as important as _conqueror_. But it's a narrow view, one he doubts he'll ever be able to show her. To her little family, her role as _mother_ is profound. But what does it matter to the larger world? Does her braiding her daughter's hair keep chains off the people of Essos?

He sees that same blindsided adoration in her eyes now. She's holding the princess in her lap when Daario approaches their table outside Rhaella's Fortress, laughing down at her with beautiful, sparkling eyes. From Daario's distance, it sounds as if the princess is singing, and he realizes quickly from her gentle hold on Daenerys's pregnant stomach that she's likely singing to the unborn baby. Not for the first time, he wonders how Daenerys hasn't gotten restless and bored by now.

King Jon is the first person to notice Daario. He nods at him, and Daario inclines his head in return. The king is still a complete stranger: they've exchanged brief words when necessary and nothing more beyond that. He thinks the man is honorable and good, albeit boring and weak-willed. His talents, as far as Daario can tell, are coddling his little daughter, brooding, and exchanging secretive looks with Daenerys. One thing Daario can't deny is their ability to communicate without saying a fucking word; it's uncanny at times.

"You came," Daenerys greets. She's still smiling from whatever her little daughter was doing to amuse her before Daario arrived. For a moment, in the presence of her smile, Daario's heart warms as if it's him she's smiling for. How long has it been since it was? Too long to count, and he's told himself he won't anymore. "Sit. Do you enjoy blandissory?"

She gestures at a set of hand-carved bowls set in the middle of the table, each already holding some steaming ruby concoction. It smells both spicy and sweet; Daario's not sure what to make of it, but he hasn't tried a dish once he hasn't liked whilst here, so he nods. He sits and takes the offered bowl, though he's in no rush to eat it. He looks up at Daenerys and meets her eyes.

"I'm assuming specific instructions are being sent back with me on how to best manage the priestesses and slavers."

Her expression hardly shifts. She observes him for a moment, her hands smoothing over her massive stomach. It seems to get bigger by the day; Daario has been expecting her to fall ill with birthing pains for days now, but thus far, she hasn't. It must be coming soon, though.

"No," Daenerys answers. She picks up a crispbread from a plate in the center of the table and dips the edge of it into the ruby soup. "We're coming up with those instructions together. You're the one who's been there; I haven't been. What do you think we should do?"

She watches him as she bites into the crispbread, waiting for his response. And she isn't going to like that response. Daario glances from her to the king— who has made no move to begin eating— and then to the princess, who's hefted some giant text up onto the tabletop beside her meal and seems indifferent to the fact that she's meant to be eating and not reading.

"Ly, eat," the king urges quietly. He gently slides the book off the table, and Lyaella frowns.

"But I say 'no thank you' to _bandissory_ , _Fawder_ …"

"Then find three other things on the table you say 'thank you' to."

It seems to be a difficult feat for the little girl. While the princess rises onto her knees in her seat and leans over the table to study the different dishes and plates, Daario gives his honest response to Daenerys.

"What we need in Essos is you."

The king's eyes snap to him at that. Daario gazes back. He doesn't give a fuck how the king feels about those words. They're the truth, and Daario won't lie.

The queen gestures at her stomach with her crispbread. "You can't have me. I am already spoken for. You'll have to find another solution."

"After, then," Daario persists. He sinks his spoon into the soup and then brings it to his lips. It's much sweeter than he'd expected it to be, and at the edge of that sweetness, there's an intermingling of spice and savoriness that makes the experience confusing. He quite wants to say _no thank you_ , too. "How long does it take to recover from a birth?"

He's never seen one and never cared to. He's heard plenty about the horrors of the birthing bed, though, and it pains him at times to think of Daenerys going through it. But considering it's Daenerys, he thinks she'll likely be recovered in a matter of days. Nothing can hold her back from anything. She can't have more than a couple days left of being with child…a couple days leading up to the birth, a couple days of recovery afterwards...they won't have to wait long at all. He doesn't see why she can't just come back to Essos with him.

His question goes unanswered for longer than he expected. He sees the king and queen exchanging another secretive look, their gazes heavy.

"The recovery time depends on what the birth is like," Daenerys finally responds. "But I am not going to Essos as soon as I stand from my birthing bed, Daario. And this matter must be handled as soon as you return, and you must return soon."

He refuses to relent yet. "Not as soon as you stand from it, then. Take a couple days. And then come back with me."

He sees the way the king cuts his eyes at him, the way his jaw flexes.

"Not as my lover. As the ruler of the Bay of Dragons. As a conqueror," Daario adds. He leans forward, his meal entirely forgotten. "You're what we need, Daenerys. The people…they don't care about me or the Second Sons. They only barely care about their own leaders that they elected. It's you they ask for, you they look for…you're who they chose to follow. You're who changed everything for them. And you're the only one who can talk sense into them. If you come back and you meet with these elected leaders, you can do more than I can do in five years with three _books_ of instructions written by Tyrion Lannister. If you come back, you can speak _directly_ to the High Priestesses in Volantis, and you can handle that situation, too. It's the only way to fix what's happened in Essos. I understand why you left, but I think it was too soon."

She doesn't respond straightaway. Daario holds her gaze and waits, the king's furious posture inconsequential to him. After a minute passes with nothing said, he picks up his spoon and resumes eating, content to let Daenerys mull over what he's said as long as she needs. But he loses the battle before it's even truly begun.

"Mamma," Princess Lyaella murmurs. She's clamoring down from her seat, her expression furrowed with worry. The adults turn to her as she climbs carefully into her mother's lap. She reaches up and holds Daenerys's face in her hands, her touch gentle and leaking affection. "Mamma, you can't go. I can't miss you so much so long. My chest, it hurts so bad when you're gone…I need my mamma, my best mamma…"

 _Well, fuck,_ Daario thinks. He suppresses a sigh as Daenerys's face softens. She goes from expressionless to bursting with emotion in the blink of an eye. She gathers the princess in her arms and holds her to her chest, her face pressing into the princess's braids.

"I'll _never_ leave you. Not _ever_ again," she swears. Daario wonders about the 'again' part, but he doesn't ask. Daenerys lifts her face up and looks down at Lyaella. She brushes her cheeks with her thumbs, caressing away tears. "How could I live without my heart?"

Lyaella brightens. Her smile is watery. "Our hearts— they are like drums and— and they pump all our blood all around in our veins!" She folds forward, tucking her ear over her mother's heart. "And they sound the prettiest of all the sounds in the world. Especially yours, Mamma."

Right then, her smile is so sweet that even Daario feels himself softening, and he's not even the recipient of it. Daario has largely found children boring and dull, but he has to admit the princess glows. He's not sure what it is about her: she's adorable, yes, with her mother's Valyrian beauty, but there's something about her enthusiasm that radiates from her. He thinks that's what inspires so much devotion from so many people. She and her mother have that skill in common.

"Really? Even prettier than harps?" Daenerys asks curiously.

"Yes, even _hawps_ ," Lyaella answers. "Don't go to Essos, Mamma."

"I'm not. At least not now, and not without you," Daenerys answers. She lifts her eyes to Daario's at the end of that sentence. He recognizes he'll have to change tactics.

"Bring the princess, then. And the king, too, if he can handle the heat." Daario imagines he'd turn bright red after only an hour in the sun. His lips curl at the thought.

"He can handle it just fine. He's the blood of the dragon." The queen's voice is cool. "I can't take my newborn to Essos. All the traveling…it wouldn't be safe."

"And it wouldn't be safe in general, you mean. Because things are unstable there. Because you're here."

She obviously hears the accusation in his tone. Her eyebrows rise slightly. She continues stroking the princess's back— she's still leaning against her mother, her ear pressed to her heart— but her posture tenses.

"Yes. I'm here. And if I _leave_ here, things will quickly grow unstable here, as well."

Daario looks around. "Things seem pretty stable to me. Or are you afraid there will be riots in the streets over the occasional wormy apple?"

The king intercedes. "The Faith—"

"A weak non-problem. Your Grace, if this had happened in Essos, you would've roasted the Septon and the Faith's council and been done with it _weeks_ ago. And you know I'm right." She parts her lips to argue, but he keeps going. "Being here is a waste of you. You're a conqueror. I've said it before and I'll say it again because it's never been more true than it is now: you're not meant to sit on a throne. You're here, putting up with pointless squabbles from enemies you could devour in a half-hour, listening to your people whine about luxuries they wouldn't have even _dreamed of_ four years ago— why? Do you think this is the best use of your talents? Your power? Your _dragons_? The dragons fly about like unruly children, and what's more, Drogon's gotten fat."

King Jon scowls. "Drogon is _not_ fat."

Lyaella lifts her face and turns to look at Daario.

"Some peoples are fat and some are thin, like some peoples are very tall and some peoples are very short and some peoples are very right-in-the-middle high." Her tone tells Daario that he's just received a firm correction. "If everybody looks the same it's thick carrot soup."

Daario furrows his brow.

"If you make soup with just one _ingreedent_ , it doesn't taste very good," she explains patiently.

"And are we _eating_ people?" asks Daario.

"No, that's one of the baddest things and very gross also," Lyaella answers. "But dragons eat people sometimes— like Meraxes! One day— one day Meraxes— Meraxes, she—"

"Lyaella, let me speak with Daario, all right?" Daenerys interrupts. She nudges Lyaella's side gently. "Go sit with Father and eat."

Daario expects the king to protest this new plan, but beyond a tightening around his eyes as the queen pulls herself upright, he doesn't argue. He pulls Lyaella into his lap, and Daario feels his eyes on them as Daario and Dany walk to the other side of the courtyard, leaving the king and princess behind.

Daenerys waits until she's sat to speak. Daario joins her on an iron bench. His eyes are drawn to her middle as she sets her hands on it, and for a moment, he watches with intermingled interest and disgust as the child within her shifts about, its movements obvious from the outside as brief, disappearing bulges.

"You're wrong," she tells him.

Daario smiles. "About all of it or something in particular?"

"All of it."

"Things aren't peaceful here?"

"No, they are. But you can't imagine the struggle it took to make it so. Nothing about _this_ —" she gestures around her emphatically— "is easy. I didn't arrive in King's Landing over four years ago, yawn, and fall into a featherbed. You don't even know the half of what Jon and I went through to get to where we are now so be careful speaking like you do. And even after all that work, all of this is fragile: one mistake, and it'll all go up in flames. That's why we're not meeting the Faith's tantrums with dragonfire: things escalate here, Daario, in a different way than they did back in Essos. Things are different here in general. I don't have _you_ here: I can't just leave and go to Essos for months. There's no one here I could leave in a position as I left you. Either they're too political-minded to be forceful enough, or they're too forceful to be political or strategic…it wouldn't work. And I _can't_ take my children with me to Essos. Not now. Even if I have a perfect birth and Aemon and I are in perfect health afterwards— which is _extremely_ unlikely given my history— I can't take him on a voyage to Essos. And I can't have Lyaella and Aemon there in Essos when there might be uprisings against my rule. They would make me and my rule vulnerable. You know it as well as I. You and I _have_ to find a better solution."

She's got plenty of reasons, but none wholly convince Daario of anything.

"And you know as well as I, Daenerys, that you can do more to quell the problems in Essos than any solution we could come up with could."

"Perhaps. But it isn't an option for me."

"It _is_ ," Daario insists. "You're the queen: anything you want is an option for you—"

"No. I understand what you're saying, and Essos is important to me—" Daario snorts. She arches a thin silver brow. "It _is_."

"Maybe," he allows. He's beginning to feel angry. He gestures at her pregnant belly. "But clearly not as important as this."

Her cheeks flush. She crosses her arms over her belly. "This is my _baby,_ Daario. My child."

"And what are your people back in Essos, then? I thought they were your children. I suppose that was just until you found the only living person left in your family so they could give you true children. Is that a Targaryen thing? Only being able to reproduce with brothers?"

He's never seen her cheeks so red, and never has he seem them so flushed from _anger_. Arousal, yes. But never rage this quick and hot.

"He is _not_ my brother."

"Whatever he is. _Blood of the dragon_. I gave you my seed more times than I can count. Had that rooted, would you have stayed in Essos? Or came here to your throne? Because, as far as I can tell, you've done what you set out to do here: you reclaimed your stolen crown and you've secured a kingdom. So why have you stopped?"

"Stopped _what_?"

"Conquering. Rescuing."

"I'm not a conqueror."

Daario laughs. He doesn't even dignify that lie with a response.

"I'm a ruler. And that's what I'm trying to do: _rule_ —"

"Westeros, but what about Essos—"

Her voice rises. "Do _not_ interrupt me!"

Daario arches an eyebrow. He feels a thrill of affection and pride. _Good,_ he thinks. _Get angry. You should be angry. All you fought for in Essos will soon be for nothing. The Daenerys I know would've been storming the skies on dragonback, not sitting here complacent and still._

"My apologies, Your Grace," Daario says smoothly. He leans back against the bench and laces his fingers behind his head. "I'm listening."

"Wipe that smug look off your face as well. I am your queen no matter if I'm here or there, and you are speaking out of turn."

"Am I? Or am I just the only person with the balls to say this to you?" Daario nods in Jon's direction. "A question for you. How many times has King Jon inquired about Essos in all the time you've been married?"

"Let me refer to my register of daily conversation topics between my husband and I," she snaps.

"If that register exists, I doubt I'd find Essos in there much. Any time it is, I'd wager you're the one who brought it up."

He knows he's right by the way she presses her soft lips together and narrows her violet eyes.

"It's understandable: Essos isn't real to him. A place can never be 'til you've drank their water, fucked their women, and shit in their latrines. And he's only done one of those things."

"I'm a Targaryen. _This_ is my home."

"You were raised in Essos. You hatched your dragons in Essos. You became a queen in Essos."

" _This_ is my _home_ ," she repeats, her voice firmer. "And you can't lay all the blame on my shoulders. How many times have we exchanged ravens? All that time you spent wasting words and ink about coming here you _could have_ and _should have_ been writing us about all these suddenly-dire issues. All the time you've wasted coming here, to what? Attempt to be my mistress? When I already made myself _painfully_ clear on how I felt about that."

Her words are sharp, but they don't sting. Because she's missed the point entirely.

He angles to face her and scoots closer to her. His knees touch her outer thigh, and she looks down at that point of contact pointedly. He reaches into her lap and takes her hands. This is the most he's touched her since he arrived, and he thought it would unseal a long-festering ache in his heart and cock, but he finds he just feels pleased at the warmth of her skin. Pleased to be sitting right across from her, to see her with his own eyes, to toss words back and forth with her again.

" _This_ is why I've come," he tells her. He chases her eyes when she averts hers. " _This_. Could we have had this conversation through ravens?"

Considering half the time it was Tyrion answering the letters for her, he knows it's impossible. She meets his eyes again. Hers are less hard.

"No," she admits. "I wouldn't have responded to half these comments."

"I know," Daario smiles. He squeezes her fingers gently. "I know _you_. And this isn't you, Daenerys. You're more than this. You came here, and you got comfortable, and you forgot that you were made to burn the old world down. And your husband—" she goes to pull her hands away, her lips twisting into a scowl, but Daario gently tightens his hold and hurriedly corrects her misconceptions on what he's trying to say. "He's a fine man. A good man. A wonderful father, and as much as it sickens me at times, a good husband, too. But he doesn't know you. Not really."

Her lips twitch, and for a moment, he thinks it might be against tears. But a peal of laughter bursts from her a second later, and though she pulls her right hand from his and reaches up to press her fingers to her lips, more laughter follows. Daario finds himself smiling even as he sighs.

"What? Have I amused you?"

"Genuinely, yes, you have."

"How so? Please, share."

She's still laughing as she reaches up and touches his beard. Her touch is equally fond and patronizing.

"You're a clever man, Daario Naharis. But you are out of your depth." She drops her fingers from his chin and pulls her left hand from his. Both her hands go to her stomach again. "The king doesn't truly know me because he doesn't view me as a conqueror, is that it?"

Daario inclines his head. "Overtly simplified, but yes."

"And because he's impregnating me rather than encouraging me to conquer every end of the known world, he's somehow holding me back."

Daario looks at her expansive middle with his eyebrows high on his face. "You can't tell me _that_ isn't holding you back with a straight face, Your Grace."

She cradles her belly affectionately, indifferent to that comment.

"You're right about one thing. Jon doesn't view me as a conqueror. And that's because Jon views me as _me_."

It takes a moment, but when those words sink in fully, they weigh on Daario's heart.

"I have never in my life been with someone who saw me as that before him. I was a pawn for my brother to use my entire childhood, and then I was a khaleesi by force, and then I was a queen and a liberator— a Dragon Queen. I took those roles and I molded them to me, yes, but they're not all I am. I'm a person before all that. And I deserve to live my own life, to be happy, to plant trees and watch them grow. I'm not alive simply to blaze across the world, nationless and alone, never stopping and never resting…I've been alone, Daario, for nearly all my life. I've been running all my life. I have _never_ been able to stop and be a _person_ , to be _me_ , until Jon. To feel like I have a right to my own happiness— a right to enjoy the freedom I worked so hard to obtain for myself. He loves me for who I am, not what I can give or what I can do. If I woke up one day and found myself without my dragons and without my power, he would go on loving me the same. And you're so laughably _wrong_ to think my time here with Lyaella and Aemon is a waste of me. No matter what I achieve while I'm here, I'm going to die one day, and that day will come sooner than we think. And when I'm dead, it won't matter how much of a _conqueror_ I was whilst alive: my corpse won't get up and conquer anything else. But my children will go on, and their children, and the children after them. If we're speaking of effective long-term plans, there is _nothing_ more important than me being here with my daughter, loving her and teaching her. Not one thing. So I suggest we start widening our suggestions on how to approach the issue in Essos because nothing you say will convince me to abandon them.."

He chooses to focus on the last part of her spiel. There will be time to consider the rest of what she's said, but that will be on the ship back to Essos after a number of drinks.

"So you will never go back to Essos."

The queen arches a brow. "Did I say that?"

"You said you won't ever leave your children, and before that you said you'll never take your children to Essos."

"I said I won't take my children right after one of those children has just entered the world, nor will I take them there if the climate is volatile. I will go back, but first we must make it stable again. And in order to do that, we must create a plan, and that plan can't involve me: we don't have time to keep waiting, and I cannot and _will not_ travel like this. Not ever again."

His mind snags on _again_ for the second time.

"Again?" he questions. "Where did you travel when you were pregnant with the princess?"

"Dragonstone. And it was…" she stops. For the first time during the entire conversation, she appears visibly upset. "I will never travel like this again, and I won't travel in my child's first few months of life either. So what do you and I need to do to begin working on the issues in Essos so that I can journey there in six or seven months' time?"

He thinks about pressing the issue of Dragonstone, but he doesn't want her to cry. He doesn't think he could bear that. He considers her question instead, though reluctantly; the easiest answer would still be her returning home and fixing things, but he knows now, without a doubt, that there is no way she will.

"We need more soldiers," he answers. "As many as you can send without jeopardizing your security here."

"Done," she says at once. "What else?"

"We need to find a way to restructure the budding government in Yunkai to balance out the leader's power. We should better prepare for the possibility that the people will let us down and choose their leaders unwisely."

"We'll meet with Tyrion and Grey Worm tonight after supper. We shall also revise the necessary qualifications for our leaders. Continue."

"No protections for murder, no matter what religion it's committed under. We try the priestesses who sacrificed humans as we would try anyone who takes the life of another."

"That is just. What else?"

"A statement from you to the people, swearing a visit by a certain deadline, and assuring them that you are guarding all things there in Essos. It's important, Daenerys. The longterm goal is to have them ruling independently, yes, but let us reassure them that you are still invested in their success as you're invested in the success of Westeros."

"We'll draft it before you depart and begin developing a timeline for the eventual journey east. And?"

 _What the hell._ "And one last opportunity to make you scream."

She laughs again, but he doesn't take offense to it. He chuckles along.

"Oh, Daario. You wouldn't even know what to do with me if you had me right now. That request is firmly denied."

"I'd figure it out quickly enough, even with _that_ ," he nods at her stomach. "Though I doubt your husband would take kindly to it."

"No," she agrees flatly. "Just as I wouldn't take kindly to the same."

"I don't think he's even taking kindly to _this_. He's been watching us the entire time."

Daenerys doesn't even glance back towards the table.

"No he hasn't. He trusts me."

"He doesn't trust me, though," Daario points out, and he turns to glance the king's way. He thought he felt his eyes, but when he looks, he's engrossed in conversation with the princess.

"Perhaps not, but he needn't worry with Ghost right here," Daenerys says.

"With what where? Oh— fuck!"

The king's fucking direwolf is suddenly in front of them, as silent and startling as a true specter. Daario can't determine where exactly he came from, but he's certain he wasn't there a moment ago. The creature's red glare genuinely unsettles him. His hand automatically goes to his hip where his sword would be— if he were allowed to have his sword within Rhaella's Fortress, which he isn't. The only people he's seen with a true weapon inside the walls are the king, the king's sister, Grey Worm, and the select few guards stationed inside the Fortress.

The direwolf prowls close to Daenerys and stoops to rest its massive face on her belly. She's smiling as she strokes his ears. One looks mangled, like a creature took a bite out of it. Daario wouldn't like to be that creature.

"He was lying behind the bench," she explains to Daario, and he both hates and loves how smug she sounds.

"He was _not_." Daario would've seen a creature that large- he's sure of it.

"He was. The entire time. He's quiet."

"Yet he let me take your hands," Daario challenges. But as the direwolf cuts his eyes at Daario, Daario understands that if he had, at any point in the conversation, set his hand on the queen in any way that made her even vaguely uncomfortable, he likely wouldn't still _have_ hands right now. He turns and looks towards the king again, and this time, their eyes meet. _Fair play,_ Daario thinks, and he inclines his head. The king lifts his tankard up to him.

"Well," the queen says. She slides her hands down to rest on Ghost's back; she uses the direwolf to steady herself as she rises slowly to her feet. "Shall we continue with our meal? I believe Lyaella has a list of questions for you about Tyrosh."

"I should hate to keep her waiting, then," Daario snorts. "What type of questions should I expect? What life is like for little girls in Tyrosh? What types of dolls they play with?"

"No," Daenerys answers. She leans into Ghost and kneads the side of her belly, her lips twisting into a momentary grimace at whatever she feels. "I believe she's curious about the specific type of pear trees that yield pear-brandy, and what sort of conditions would need to be replicated within our glass gardens to cultivate that type here in King's Landing. Oh, and she's got a number of questions about the treatment of your horses."

"…Right," Daario says. Not for the first time, he finds himself thinking that the princess is very odd, though he values his head too much to voice that opinion aloud to anyone in King's Landing. She's adored from Rhaella's Fortress to the furthest reaches of Flea Bottom. "The princess and I actually have something in common that we can talk about."

"Oh?"

"I also say 'no thank you' to that red soup."

Daenerys laughs. "You don't like it?"

"It's too many things at once."

She shakes her head. "That's what makes it good."

In the end, he changes his mind. As he sips at it during a surprisingly lively conversation with Princess Lyaella, the unfamiliar taste grows on him.

VII.

Daenerys finds her visits to the maester nerve-wracking on the best of days, but having Lord Tyrion there reading off a list of recent transgressions by the Faith of the Seven only intensifies her stress. She lay on her back on Aethel's table, the weight of her belly leaving her feeling short of breath, her mind whirling with Tyrion's words. They leave her as mentally uncomfortable as she is physically; this past moonturn, she's been nearly chronically miserable. Standing hurts her knees and feet, sitting hurts her back, and lying on her side comfortably is a heroic feat requiring at least four pillows and an ungodly amount of patience. And lying on her back on this table is the worst of all.

"We've arrested those who vandalized the Temple last week. They're scrubbing the pig's blood from the bricks as we speak, and as requested, they'll be tending to the Memorial Gardens for a moonturn as penance for their crimes."

Lyaella rotates on her stool to face Tyrion at once, her little face falling. "They killed pigs, _Tyion_?"

They had. They'd slaughtered them on the steps. No one wants to tell her that, though; they all know the type of crusade the princess would go on if she found out an animal had been mistreated, and it's for that reason Dany and Jon have kept the pig-murdering bit quiet. Pigs are ranked somewhere near horses to Lyaella, though all animals are ranked high. She likes to rub the belly of a particularly friendly pig she dubbed _Sunshine,_ thankfully _not_ one of the pigs slaughtered by the Faith. Sunshine joined the Crown's ever-growing sanctuary of 'rescued animals' a few moonturns ago, saved from slaughter by the princess's fierce affections. Arya's goats are the most recent additions to Lyaella's menagerie, though certainly not the last. Jon often jokes that they'll soon have a farm rather than a palace.

Tyrion clearly has no interest in being the one to break the news about the pig slaughter to Lyaella. He lowers his notes and changes the subject quickly.

"How is Baby Aemon doing this week, Maester Lyaella?" he asks her.

Lyaella's face blooms with a smile. She twists around to face the piece of parchment set in front of her. She lifts her quill up and begins marking at her 'notes' as she answers Tyrion. Her job lately has been to 'take note' of all the important information Aethel gives them, but it's truly just to keep her occupied.

"He is very very good," she says firmly. Dany closes her eyes then, trying not to panic at how heavy her chest feels. Her breathlessness is getting worse: she feels like her lungs won't expand well enough to get a true breath. "But he's not ready to come out just yet."

"Not _yet_? Truly, Aethel?" Tyrion demands, his tone changing. He sounds surprised— frustrated— worried— _if only he knew how_ I _feel,_ Dany thinks sourly.

"He's a stubborn little thing. He's stayed in far longer than we expected he would, but hopefully he's coming to terms with his impending departure," Maester Aethel answers calmly. She presses firmly on the top of Dany's belly; Dany shifts her hips in discomfort. Aethel's hand slides over the swell of her belly and then presses in just above her pubic bone. "He seems to be head-down right now. That's good; perhaps he won't move again, and your time will come soon. He needs to drop more before then, but I think it's likely to happen within the week."

Dany doesn't let her hope rise. Aethel said the same thing a week ago. She's already a moonturn past the point _she_ thought she'd make it to, and a week past the point Aethel projected; at this rate, she's half-certain Aemon's never coming out. And a moonturn prior, she wouldn't have bemoaned that at all. She would've happily held her baby safe inside her for as long as he needed. But her current size is making her feel caged, and she's getting to the point where her fear of having to stay this uncomfortable for any further amount of time is much greater than her fear of childbirth.

She can't bear the pressure any longer. Her lungs are tight, and the aching in her lower back feels like her joints are being ground between stones.

"Aethel, are you done? Can I roll over now?" Dany asks.

"Yes," Aethel assures her. She steps back and grabs an additional pillow, setting it beside Dany so it'll rest beneath her belly as she turns over onto her side. "Princess Lyaella, will you check Mother's temperature?"

"And write it down?"

"Yes, using your picture-scale, please," Aethel requests.

Lyaella flies into action at once. Her 'picture-scale' is no more precise than a drawing of a flame for 'very hot', a sun for 'perfect', and a water droplet for 'too cool', but they all pretend it's of sound medical value. Lyaella drags her stool over and rests it beside the side of the table. After she climbs up onto it, she reaches towards Dany's face, and Dany takes her hand in hers and kisses it gently. Lyaella smiles. For the next five minutes or so, Lyaella painstakingly checks the temperature of every inch of Dany's face and neck, pausing every now and then to jot something down. While she does that, Aethel asks Dany the same questions she's been asking her every day (how often has Aemon moved today, how are feeling, have you noticed any blood…). Dany answers her with half her mind on the conversation Jon and Tyrion are having on the other side of the chambers. She chimes in a couple times to ask further questions— Tyrion's tone is hushed like he's trying to keep her from hearing, which aggravates her and encourages her to probe for more information— but she can tell there's something Tyrion's not saying. Some of his answers are uncharacteristically brief and vague, and when Dany looks over at him, he avoids her eyes.

She doesn't have the patience for it. Not this, or nearly anything else.

"What?" she snaps, her tone so sharp Lyaella's eyes widen. "What are you keeping from us, Lord Tyrion?"

Tyrion doesn't respond straightaway, and that only serves to irritate Dany more. _Who does he think he is keeping things from me?_ she thinks furiously. _I am not some fragile little girl who needs to be protected. I am the queen. If_ anyone _should know what is going on, it's me._

"Well?" she demands.

He has his head bowed as he shuffles over to stand between Aethel and Lyaella. Lyaella peeks at him from beneath her silver eyelashes, her diligent note-taking forgotten in the face of this building argument.

"I don't want you to be angry with me."

Dany casts her eyes up to the ceiling. With just those words, she's already angry. "Then don't do things to anger me."

He sighs. "Early this morning— before you and Jon and Lyaella rose for the day— our priestess was attacked while leaving the vandalized temple. She's all right…we're lucky it happened when it did: two soldiers were nearby and intervened before she was severely injured. We arrested the men who attacked her, and I got word a half-hour ago that there are…demonstrations outside of the Sept. Demonstrations against the Red God's religion, and against us for arresting those men. It seems the temporary stifling of the sacrifices in Essos aren't enough to sway the public away from the High Septon's poisoned words."

Dany's so angry she can hardly speak. The pressure of her rage starts in the pit of her stomach and builds quickly up her throat. It only serves to make her torso feel even _more_ packed.

"And you waited until _now_ to tell me this— after I had to _demand_ the information— because…what? You're worried about me worrying? I should have been told this _moments_ after you found out."

"I was going to. I headed straight to Rhaella's Fortress, but Red Fly said you might have reached your time."

"There are rumors of that every single day. That's not an excuse to keep it a secret all morning."

"I wasn't intending to, but…" he stops. He turns and glances back at Jon, like he half expects Jon to come to his defense. He's right to think Jon would understand his urge to coddle, but he's wrong to think Jon would ever take his side over Dany's. Jon ignores him. "We don't need to worry about it."

Dany laughs. "No? So you know how to fix it all? You've got a solution in mind right now, one that will undo what's been started with the Faith and quell all future threats, attacks, and protests?"

He frowns. And Dany feels a rush of fear and frustration, because _she_ knows how to fix it. How to undo what's been started and make it all right. But she had hoped so much that there would be another way around it, that some of the other people she trusts could come up with a way to save them for once. That she wouldn't always have to be the one sacrificing and rescuing. And it doesn't matter how aware she is that half her frustration is coming from her pregnancy-related discomfort; it doesn't change how angry she feels.

"Mamma, you're suns all down the paper," Lyaella tells her gently, her tone mollifying. She, too, has noticed Dany's frustration, and because none of this is Lyaella's fault, Dany breathes through her emotions long enough to pull Lyaella to her in a one-armed hug and kiss her face.

"Thank you, sweetling," she murmurs. She kisses her a final time. "Show Aethel your notes."

Aethel steps to the side with Lyaella to confer. Dany grips the table and eases her way upright. She slides her legs over the edge of the table, and as she sits there, her massive stomach weighing heavily on her thighs, she gives in.

"We're going to have to let them have their Blessing."

Jon's head snaps in her direction immediately. As his face falls, Tyrion's flickers with hope.

"No," Jon protests. He steps over to her, his displeasure written all over his face. "Dany, we can't and we don't have to. We aren't."

Dany feels a series of painful nudges from Aemon as he squirms about in her cramped womb. She reaches down to grab her stomach, fear coursing through her.

"Don't," she begs him on instinct. "Don't move again. Stay as you are."

She freezes and hardly breathes, waiting to see if her inaction will influence Aemon to do the same. He gradually stills, but she lowers her voice to a whisper anyway, in fear she'll somehow overexcite him and make him flip or turn again. Though Aethel has told her she doesn't need to fear it, lately she's been afraid that he'll get stuck in the wrong position, that the crowded confines of her womb won't give him enough space to make it _back_ to the birthing position before time. And then what happens? She is afraid to imagine it.

Jon comes to sit on the edge of the table beside her. She looks up and meets his heavy eyes.

"Dany…"

"We have no other viable option. If we continue on the path we're on, we're going to have a true problem on our hands. We've already got one, but it will get violent and widespread quicker than we can swaddle Aemon. And I _can't_ worry about that, Jon. I can't. I don't want to. I don't want a war, and I don't want the stress of knowing one is brewing the entire time I'm bringing Aemon here or in the weeks that follow. At this point, I don't care who is in that room, so long as Grey Worm has his spear held ready to pierce them should they try anything. He can sit there and pray with his Seven Chimes; I do not care anymore."

_I just want to have our son. I want to hold him. I want to feel good again. I want him to be okay, and I'm worried he's not going to be._

"Daario said—"

She knows she shouldn't interrupt him— he wouldn't interrupt her— but she can't help it.

"So that's an option now? You're taking advice from Daario? We're going to burn the High Septon, the Most Devout, and their Septs?"

"No, but we can dismantle their religion for crimes against the crown and for their persecution of _our_ religion."

"While our religion continues on unimpeded despite their multiple murders? Does that sound just to you? Because I promise it won't sound just to the people. We can't take their faith from them. That's a slight we won't come back from."

"Well they can't treat you like this— treat _us_ like this—!"

"They can. To them, we're not people. We're the king and queen. It's something different."

Right then, she feels so much a _person_ that it's excruciating. Her belly bursting with life and movement, her emotions frayed and fragile, her constant discomfort making her achingly aware of her own body at every moment of every day…and the Faith doesn't see it. Many of her people don't see it. To them, she's Queen Daenerys of House Targaryen, an almost mythical leader. They love her, but it's the same way Lyaella loves figures from history or storybook characters; it's not a love based in reality, a love rooted in unconditional acceptance, the sort that allows one to be human. A love she knows Jon harbors for her.

Her surety in that love is what keeps her from backing down. _I just need this over with,_ she thinks. She trusts that Jon will understand, that even if he's upset with her, he'll love her all the same. That even if they fight and go to bed in silence, they'll wake in each other's arms. She can't say the same for the more religiously zealous of her people.

"But we _are_ people. You are a person— you don't want this, Dany, I know you don't—"

"No. I don't. But I don't want a war more. Sometimes it's about choosing what is less horrid."

"It doesn't have to be! It doesn't have to!" His tone is as close to pleading as it could get without him literally begging. "If we let them do this, when and where does it stop? Will we let them sit in on every child's birth?"

She deflects. "Gods, I can't even get _this_ child to come out, and we're already worried about the next birth?"

"You know what I mean."

She does. It's a true concern, one she's thought many times, and one of the original reasons she'd refused the Faith. But she can't see another way, and the people who are supposed to see ways she can't see— her advisors— have yet to come up with anything effective. And time is running out.

"I'll have more energy to fight that battle when it comes," she tells him. "I don't have any now, Jon. I'm tired."

Her tone comes out wearier than she'd intended. She sees a flash of silver from the corner of her eye as Lyaella's head whips in her direction at the sound of her downtrodden voice. Lyaella abandons her conversation without any scruples and walks over to lean against Dany. She wraps her arms around Dany's right leg and rests her cheek sweetly against her knee.

"Want to nap, Mamma?" she asks her gently. "I'll go have napping time with you."

Dany smoothes her hair. "Soon, Lyaella. I would love that. Let Daddy and I talk, okay?"

"Okay," Lyaella says, but she misunderstands what Dany's really asking and remains at her side. Dany doesn't push her away. She looks back up at Jon; his eyes are churning with all the emotions she's used to seeing lately— concern, love, guilt— but there's something new there, too. When he speaks, she realizes from the taut tenor of his voice that it's frustrated anger.

"I know you are. I know it. But we can't give into them, Daenerys. It's the wrong choice. It's not right."

She has nothing to say back to that. Everything she could say, she already has. And she's too tired to repeat 'we have no other option' multiple times. He heard her the first time.

She pats Lyaella's braids gently. "Let me stand up, sweetling. Let's go nap."

Lyaella stands, and no one attempts to stop her as she leaves the Maester's chambers. Aethel gives her a flask of her daily tea— a mixture meant to prepare her body for labor and help prevent the same sort of hemorrhaging that had contributed to her death the last time— to drink on the walk back to Rhaella's Fortress. Dany sips at it, but Jon's steely silence at her side has her stomach clenched with annoyance and regret, and it's harder to get herself to finish it than it usually is.

Jon maintains his silence until they close their bedchamber door, and then he reaches out to take Dany's hand, stilling her as she goes to turn from him and walk towards the bed.

"We don't have to do anything, Daenerys. We can find another way. We just need a bit more time."

His use of _Daenerys_ instead of _Dany_ floods her with immediate and senseless irritation. She pulls her hand from his and walks over to the bed. Her feet are aching so badly from her walk that they're throbbing, and she ignores him as she toes her shoes off each swollen foot. She wants out of her dress, but she can't reach the laces without him, and she doesn't want to ask him for help right now. She sets about undoing Lyaella's braids instead. Their daughter sits beside Dany without comment, but she's watching her parents carefully.

"You're not going to talk to me about this?" Jon finally demands.

She draws her fingers gently through Lyaella's soft hair, untwisting the first of her braids. "I don't have anything else to say. If you can come up with a miraculous solution, we can talk about that."

"Here's a solution: we ignore the Faith, and the next time they harm someone, we arrest them all."

"And turn our people against us entirely?"

"If we have reason for it—"

"Our people are believers in the New Gods, Jon. The vast majority of them, in fact. It'd be suicide."

His jaw flexes. He stands there and looks at her for a moment, and then he walks over, his movements stiff. He sinks to his knees in front of her; Dany's hands pause in Lyaella's silken curls. She meets his eyes as he sets his hands on her knees.

"Our people will understand," he insists.

"And if they don't?" _When_ they don't.

She sees a flicker of some fierceness she hardly sees, a fierceness that originated those three days he was without her.

"We've got five dragons. They'll understand."

It's true— and it's not enough.

"My ancestors had their dragons when they converted over to the Faith of the Seven. It wasn't enough then. It's not now, either. If we burn the Septs down, we're only creating more enemies, not eliminating them. Maegor is proof of that; how many Septs did he burn? And in the end, it wasn't enough to mend his conflicts with the Faith and the people. Even if it would fix it in some way, Jon, I don't want to destroy the things we've built. We've worked too hard…we've seen King's Landing from ashes to _this._ I don't want to be Queen of the Ashes anymore than I did before. I _need_ this world safe for Lyaella and Aemon. I need it stable. I need to know, when we hold our son for the first time, that there won't be an army of angry people seeking to rip him out of our grasps. That is what I _need_. So let us do what we must and be done with it. We can allow him in with stipulations…we'll make sure he stays in his chair, and I think we'll forget he's even there."

She's not optimistic about that, but she needs to say it anyway. In truth, the thought of that man— a despised stranger— being in that room and seeing her that way makes her feel nauseated and violated. But what else can she do but shoulder this burden for the greater good?

"Nothing more is likely to happen between now and Aemon's birth. Please, Dany— let's just get through the rest of this and the birth, and _then_ we'll deal with the Faith. Then we'll find another solution."

"We only get this one opportunity to make things right. Once Aemon is here, he's here, and we won't have this option available to us any longer."

Jon sags. His head bows and he tightens his grip on her knees briefly. His genuine anguish at the idea pains Dany, but she angrily pushes that pain away. There's nothing for it. There's nothing else she can do.

Jon looks back up at her. "What can I say to change your mind? If I tell you the thought makes me sick, will that change things? Because it does, and I can see it does the same for you. That should be enough to tell us it's the wrong one."

"The only thing that will change my mind is a better option."

"Then let's find one. Let's go talk with the Septon and the Most Devout again. We can offer to have Aemon baptized as a compromise. They've been seeking that, too. We can give them the choice of having their leaders arrested for the vandalization and the attacks and _no_ involvements with their faith— or peace from us and the prince baptized. They'll have to choose the latter."

She's surprised he's suggesting even that. He's been against the idea of Aemon being baptized by them as vehemently as he's been against the Septon sitting in on the birth. He's feared it's a transgression against R'hllor that will bring them further trouble, and while Dany understands that thought, she also thinks the Lord of Light will understand what they're dealing with. Though it doesn't help that he's been quiet in the flames lately.

"It doesn't hurt to ask them. To try," Jon presses, filling the silence. "The worst thing they can say is no. And then…then…we'll know we _truly_ have no other option. And even if we do find a compromise, even if the people are still disappointed that he won't receive the blessing…we can explain it all to them…if we tell them what we've been through with your last birth, they won't expect it of us. They'll have compassion."

Dany would like to believe that, but she's not sure anymore. Yet she's willing to try, even if only to comfort Jon.

"We can try," she decides. She feels so tired suddenly; she's not sure if it's the prospect of another long argument with the Septon or just a byproduct of all the things she's carrying, both physical and emotional, but the thought of walking to the Sept now makes her nearly teary. "Later, though. Ly and I are going to rest."

Dany unfurls the last of Lyaella's braids, and Lyaella turns to look at them, her moon-pale hair hanging loose over her shoulders. "Sleep is important," she says firmly. " _Fawder_ , you too?"

Dany finds herself holding her breath. She wants to hear _yes_ , but she's afraid he's still frustrated with her, and from the worried look Lyaella is casting at each parent, it seems she's fearing the same.

"Yes, me too," Jon assures Lyaella. "Let me help Mother with her dress, and then I'll change and join you both. Let's get you settled first, though. What do you want to sleep in?"

Lyaella brightens. She climbs from the bed and rushes to her bedchambers, chattering on about what nightdress she's going to choose. Annet delivered new clothes for her yesterday to accommodate her constant growing, and Lyaella's been quite taken with the novelty of them.

She chooses the 'sunny one', a light cotton shift that's shaded a yellow so pale it's nearly white. Jon helps her change while Dany becomes preoccupied with Aemon's squirming; she holds her stomach and murmurs softly to him, trying to encourage him to stay put. Lyaella joins in on the campaign while Jon sits behind Dany and works with the laces of her dress. Lyaella caresses Dany's belly and shushes Aemon.

"Just be still…take a nap with us," she encourages her brother. "You need lots of sleep to have energy for when you come out of there, okay?"

His following kicks and twists feel stubborn in nature. Lyaella sighs.

"He's just too comfy and cozy, Mamma," she laments. "'Cause it's just lovely-dark. I remember 'cause I was in there once."

Dany bites back a smile, and when she glances back at Jon, she sees him doing the same.

"Oh? You remember that far back?"

"Yes. It was warm and loud, but in a good way, like a heartbeat way. But I was scared all the times, Mamma, and I just— I just couldn't wait to come out and see you and I just couldn't wait for you to hold me."

Dany's smile breaks through, but it's a bit sad. Sometimes, like now, Lyaella's growing is undeniable. Just the progression of her speaking skills from the start of this pregnancy 'til now astounds Dany at times, and though she's glad to be able to hear more about what Lyaella thinks and feels, she has to admit her heart pangs every time she says _mother_ instead of _muver_ , which happens more and more. Dany's selfishly been promoting 'Mamma' because of it.

"But Aemon's not scared," Lyaella continues. She lays over Dany's belly and hugs it. "'Cause we're all so happy and he's just with his mamma, his best mamma. There's no bad man any more."

Those words twist the affection coursing through Dany into sorrow. She assumes Lyaella's forming that based on her brief ideas of what she knows about her own time spent in her mother's womb— about Bloodraven haunting her mother and father, about him trying to hurt them both— but it saddens her all the same. She wishes then she'd never told her anything about it. And it doesn't escape her notice that if she lets the Septon into the birthing room, there _will_ be a 'bad man' there with them again this time.

For the first time in the past ten or so minutes, Aemon's restless shifting lulls. Dany usually finds Lyaella lying on top of her very uncomfortable, simply because she's got enough weight bearing down on her as it is, but this time, she closes her arms around her and holds her close.

"Aemon likes you hugging him," she tells her daughter. "He's finally calm."

She feels Lyaella's smile against her belly.

"'Cause we're best best best _fends_ ," she smiles. "And you and Daddy are best _fends_ even if you fight, right?" There's a pause. Lyaella laughs brightly. "Fight and right are rhymes, Mamma! I didn't even know I did that!"

"You're right," Dany smiles. "They are. You're just too clever for your own good. And of course Father and I are still best friends. We love each other so much, don't you ever worry about that."

"And we aren't fighting," Jon adds. He pulls the last lace at the back of her dress free, giving Dany much more room to breathe. "We're just having a disagreement. That happens sometimes."

"If we tell R'hllor about the Septon it will be better," Lyaella suggests. "He can fix it."

"That's a good idea, Ly," Jon says. He tugs Lyaella over into his lap so Dany can rise to change. "Tell me, have you seen anything else about the horn in your dreams?"

Dany listens to their conversation as she steps from her dress and pulls her last fitting dressing gown on. Lyaella has found it much easier to speak about her dreams lately; she was able to talk to Tormund about the ice circles before he left, though she didn't give him any new information. She hasn't had much to tell Jon and Dany about this horn either, beyond the fact that they need to find it, it's where the dagger is, it's very 'horrible-loud', and it somehow ties people up or binds them or imprisons them…they've had a difficult time understanding what she's saying it does, even after they finally corrected her understanding of the word 'geld'. It's another issue Jon and Dany have elected to watch carefully.

"I saw one time, but I forgot the whole, whole thing, except it was cold and Aemon gaved me his cloak and it smells like fire."

Dany wonders how she can forget the 'whole, whole thing' and then remember something as specific as the smell of her brother's cloak. Jon is equally bemused.

"Oh," he says. "Remember to tell Mother and me if you see anything else, in the flames or in your dreams. Okay?"

"Okay. 'Cause we are a family and we worry together," Lyaella says.

"Right. Exactly."

It begins raining as soon as they've all changed and climbed beneath the covers. With the absence of sunlight, the room is dim, and the cool breeze coming from the opened balcony doors makes Dany shiver.

"Do you want me to close them?" Jon whispers.

"No, I like the sound."

The gentle thrumming of the rain is soothing. Lyaella clearly thinks the same: she's asleep in minutes, snoozing sandwiched between Dany and Jon, her cheek pressed to Dany's belly. Dany's surprised Tyrion hasn't sought them out again yet, but she's thankful for the peace, for an opportunity to simply rest her tired body. Jon's warm hand strokes her hair, and even that slight touch comforts her; she drifts as close to sleep as possible while still being vaguely aware of the sound of the rain and her family's soft breaths. When a peal of thunder rumbles through their chambers, she thinks even it sounds sleepy and padded. She feels Jon's hand slip from her hair and move suddenly to her belly, but it feels like a long while before she realizes why.

"I'm not," she murmurs.

Another peal rolls through the room, echoing off the stone walls.

"Storms always make me think of that day."

She reaches blindly for his hand. When she grasps it, she drags it up to her lips. After pressing a kiss to his palm and his knuckles, she flattens his hand to her cheek and cradles it there.

"This time will be different. That's why, if we have to let the Septon come, it _will_ be okay. We won't be thinking about him. Just each other and our baby. He won't hurt me or Aemon or Lyaella."

"No, but it will hurt our rule. Once we show them that we're willing to bend and let them into your birthing chambers, they'll know there's nothing they can't get us to bend on."

Dany doesn't want to argue with him again; she regrets bringing it up. She kisses his hand once more and tries to quell the urge to move closer to him, knowing it's impossible with Lyaella between them and all the pillows wedged around and beneath her. The next boom of thunder is more intense than the others, and Lyaella finches in her sleep. Both she and Jon scoot in just a bit more so Lyaella's cradled safely between them.

"Let's not argue about it now. I just want to rest here with you. Okay?"

"Okay," Jon agrees. It seems he wants to argue even less than she does.

It isn't long before the warmth of his hand against her cheek and the sound of the rain lulls her to true sleep.

VIII.

She's feeling much better after her nap, leading her to believe her exhaustion was a generous contributor to her earlier hopelessness. She wakes feeling like Jon's idea about the baptism might work, that R'hllor won't mind at all, and that everything will turn out all right.

Lyaella's well-rested, too. She's in a giggly mood when she wakes, and her joy is infectious; Dany finds herself giggling along with her daughter as she combs through her sleep-tousled hair, her physical discomfort momentarily forgotten.

She and Jon decide to go to the sept after supper, a decision greatly impacted by the clenching ache of Dany's hunger pains. She thinks she might be more pliable and patient if they go after she eats rather than before, a theory Jon teasingly backs up with a quip about her appetite. Dany's glad to be laughing with him again, and she hopes they end the night the same way.

They walk to the Great Hall to meet Arya, Gendry, and Grey Worm for supper, and as they walk, Lyaella alternates between skipping ahead of them or bouncing around them, her energy bursting and unconfined.

"I got a joke!" Lyaella cries. She flaps her arms at her sides as she hops back over to them, wedging her way between them. She grabs their entwined hands and pulls them apart to sink her hand in both of theirs. Dany squeezes her hand affectionately. "Mamma, Daddy, what did the septa say to the little girl?"

"Cross your ankles?" Dany guesses. It's something the septa at the scholarhouse loves to tell Lyaella the few times Lyaella chooses to sit through a sewing lesson. Lyaella is fond of slouching in her chair or sitting cross-legged in her dresses. And then telling the septa, 'I can move my legs as I like 'cause they're mine, thank you'.

"Don't interrupt adults," Jon suggests. Another scold Lyaella often hears, this one largely from Sansa.

"No," Lyaella laughs. Her giggles grow in intensity. "She says…she says…!" She's laughing too hard to continue. Dany looks on with a smile until she's able to get the words out. "She says 'stop dragon your feet!'"

Lyaella laughs so hard she stops walking and doubles over, causing her parents' hands to slip from hers. Dany's lips curl up as the 'joke' sinks it, and then she starts laughing, too, but mostly at how adorable Lyaella is more than the joke itself.

"I don't get it," Jon teases. "Is the little girl a dragon?"

"She— she— she says— 'dragon' and— and she's 'dragging' her— her feet—!"

"Where'd you hear this from?" Jon grins. He takes a step back and leans over, hoisting their giggling daughter into the air. Lyaella howls with laughter as he tickles her belly. "I think you've left out part of the punchline. I think the septa says that to a little dragon."

"I heard it from my brain! The little girl was _dragon_ her feet, Daddy, do you get it now?"

"Yes," Jon chuckles. His chuckles grow quickly to guffaws at Lyaella's earnest expression. He lifts her up and kisses her face. " _Please_ tell that one to Arya, Ly. First thing."

Lyaella beams and nods.

"I've _got_ to hear more now," Jon says in mock seriousness. "Do you know any other jokes?"

"Gendy told me one! It goes…why do dragons sleep during the day?!"

"Hmm…I don't know. Why?"

"Because— because— because!" she falls into giggles again and has to take a few deep breaths before she can finish. "So they can fight knights! _K-_ nights! Get it, Father?! Do you get it?!"

Jon's laughter trails off abruptly.

" _Father_?" he demands. "I thought I was _fawder_!"

"That's what I say…Father."

"Fawder," Jon corrects.

"Father!" Lyaella insists. " _Fawder_! Father! _Fawder_!"

Jon points at Dany. "Who's that?"

"Mamma?"

"Who else?"

Lyaella smiles. "Daenerys Targaryen!"

"And?" he presses.

Lyaella clearly isn't sure what he's trying to get from her. "Dany?"

" _And_ …"

"Queen Daenerys?"

" _Muver_?"

"Yes, Mother!"

Jon twists her and props her on his hip so he can hug her close, his hand cradling the back of her head. Lyaella seems baffled by his sudden mood change. She pats his back.

"You don't think my joke is funny."

"No, I love your jokes," Jon assures her. He kisses the top of her hair. "You're just growing up."

"Yes, I know all about everything now," Lyaella affirms, which surely doesn't comfort Jon much at all. "I even know about gelding, which is bad, and it makes men not have babies anymore. Do you want another joke, Daddy?"

Jon hides his smile into her curls. "Absolutely. Are they all about dragons?"

"Yes. What do you call a dragon that can juggle?"

Jon looks down at Dany, likely because she's slowed: the aching in her arches has increased, leading her swollen feet to throb quicker than she thought they would, and she's currently feeling a grinding pain in her hip that's making her leg tingle and prickle with pain.

"Dany, what do you think?" Jon asks.

"Oh, I couldn't dream of guessing correctly," she dismisses. She kneads her hip and shifts her weight over to her other side as they continue on. "What do we call them, Lyaella?"

" _Talon-ted!_ "

Dany stops walking and pulls Jon to a momentary stop so she can lean in and kiss her daughter. Her cheeks are flushed from her laughter, and her grey eyes sparkle with happiness. Dany touches her little chin and feels her heart writhe with affection so strong she's seized with an urge to take Lyaella into her own arms and squeeze her tight.

"If history doesn't remember Queen Lyaella as being utterly and totally delightful, they won't have written about you properly at all," she says fondly.

"I don't want to be delightful, Mamma, I want to be good. Like Alysanne," Lyaella corrects.

"You're both," Jon assures her. Lyaella seems happy with that.

They continue on with their walk. Lyaella is out of jokes, but not out of questions. She's never out of those.

"Are you going to the Sept after we eat?" she asks them.

Dany hadn't realized how closely she'd been following her and Jon's argument before their nap.

"Yes," Dany admits.

"I'm coming with you?"

Jon and Dany exchange a look at that. They hadn't planned on it. They'd already made arrangements for her to go down to the harbor with Arya and Gendry; she's been obsessed with the moonfish that glow at the shallow waters at nightfall, and they thought it'd be a nice distraction from her parents' absence.

She reads into their silence. "I want to go with you."

"It's not going to be any fun, Ly," Jon tells her honestly. "We're going to have to argue with the High Septon, likely for a while. You'll have more fun with Arya and Gendry. They want to take you to feed the moonfish."

"I can go with them tomorrow," she dismisses. "I want to go to the Septon, too. 'Cause that's my _buver_ they are angry about. They are always angry about him."

Dany looks up at Jon. She sees from his furrowed brow that he's found that comment odd, too.

"Always? Really? What sort of things are they angry about?"

"I dunno," Lyaella shrugs. "But one time— in the fire— I saw them yelling and yelling at him when he was big. I was so mad. I was _so mad,_ Daddy…" her big eyes get distant, like she's remembering something she'd forgotten. "…I did a bad thing. I hitted him."

Dany's surprised. "Aemon?"

"No!" Lyaella's voice turns shrill with horror at the thought. "The Septon. 'Cause of what he sayed to us. And how he was _screaming screaming_ at _my_ buver! And when I hitted him— I got…I got bud— blood— I got blood on my pretty white dress…" she trails off, her face falling. She looks faraway as she smooths her hands over the front of her spring green dress, likely the spot the Septon's blood hit her in her memory. "And my buver…Buver…oh, Buver _didn't_ like that, didn't like the Septon ruining my dress and saying what he sayed…and…" Whatever she's recalling has upset her. She twists and tucks her face against Jon's neck. "I want to go feed the moonfish."

Jon rubs her back soothingly. "Arya and Gendry will be so happy to hear that. I'm sure they've been waiting _all_ morning and _all_ afternoon to take you to the fish."

Lyaella's response is muffled into Jon's neck. "I think they have been kissing."

Dany laughs at that. Jon tickles Lyaella, and she blooms with laughter at once. She hugs him around the neck affectionately afterwards.

"Gross," Jon teases.

"Yeah, gross," Lyaella giggles. "Except not really, Father, because kisses are sweet."

"That's true," Jon smiles, and he kisses Lyaella's forehead, her nose, her cheek. She falls into giggles again. He rocks her gently in his arms afterwards, his love for her so vast that Dany feels the backs of her eyes burn. She strokes her belly, thinking— not for the first time— that there is no one else in the world she would've wanted as her babies' father but this man.

IX.

"I think it's an elbow," Arya declares. She straightens, lifting her face from right above Dany's belly. She eyes the bulge traveling across the front of it, visible beneath Dany's thin silk dress. "Definitely an elbow."

"A knee!" Gendry disputes. He leans closer, studying the visible movements closely.

"It's not a knee! How would his knee be right there?! Weren't you listening when Aethel said how he's facing?" Arya demands. "It's a bloody elbow! He's pulled his arms back like this and elbowed out!" Arya tucks both her arms up and then rears them back, like she's elbowing someone behind her.

Gendry straightens and turns to face Arya. "No way. He could've turned around again, or maybe he's flexible. That was too big to be an elbow."

"He's a _massive baby_! He's got massive baby elbows!"

For what it's worth, Jon's fairly certain it was Aemon's heel. But he can sense that Arya and Gendry are going to continue arguing even if he weighs in.

"He hasn't turned around, and let's not even put the idea into his little head," Dany interrupts firmly. She trails her hands over the curve of her stomach and pauses thoughtfully, touching over another one of Aemon's nudges. "And I think it's his heel."

Jon grins somewhat smugly into his tankard of ale. _I know my son,_ he thinks, his heart swelling. It's followed by a rush of longing. He can't wait to hold his son, to smile at him and kiss his downy-soft hair ( _my hair_ , he remembers). He has dreams of holding the perfect weight of him to his chest, of resting his nose along his scalp and smelling that sweet baby scent Lyaella had, of feeling his little heart beating against his own. Dreams of cuddling him and singing to him— dreams of being his father. It feels as if he's been waiting to meet him all his life. He thinks, when he finally does, something with slot into place in his life, some missing piece he's carried around since he was a boy. He can't wait…

And he can. His emotions lately are half-excitement and half-terror. And it only seems to get worse with each day that passes. He half-sleeps at night, on edge every moment of every day for an unusual grimace from Dany, or a gasp of pain, or the sight of her doubling over. The longer the pregnancy drags on, the worse he thinks the labor will be, even if that fear is unfounded. Because Arya is right: Aemon is big, at least in comparison to tiny Lyaella. And though Aethel tells Jon that both Daenerys and Aemon are extremely healthy, and that this pregnancy has gone perfectly, he can't help but fear how long it's dragging on. His wife is so little to him: with her belly as big as it is, he fears the birth is going to be challenging in different ways from Lyaella's. And that fear makes him both anxious and fearful for the moment things finally begin- whenever that may be.

Lyaella begins lecturing Arya and Gendry on Aemon's position, not really noticing that they're not as interested in his every moment as she is. She sits in Arya's lap and prods over her pelvis.

"And the baby's head— his head— it fits right in here and then he starts to be borned out."

"Let's not show the dinner table where he's 'borned out' from," Arya teases Lyaella, moving her hand from her abdomen. "Do you think Aemon is _finally_ going to come out this week, Lyaella?"

"He'll come out when he's ready," she replies sagely.

"He needs to be ready soon," Daenerys murmurs to Jon. She squirms in the wooden chair, extending her right leg slowly, her movements oddly hindered as if her leg weighs four times its normal weight. "I think he's pressing on something— my right leg is burning and prickling, and I can't feel my buttocks at all."

"Shall I massage it?"

She arches a brow. "My buttock?"

Jon smiles. "Or your leg, I'm not fussy."

She nods at his plate. "No, you need to finish eating so we can go speak with the Septon."

He'd forgotten about the food left on his plate. He doesn't have much of an appetite and hasn't for some days now, and he doesn't imagine that's going to change any time soon.

He slides his chair back. It screeches across the tile floor as he does, causing people to look his way briefly. He doesn't care. He opens his arms for his wife, and she gives him a skeptical look.

"You'll regret having me on your lap rather quickly," she warns him.

"Is that a bet?"

If it is, she clearly doesn't like her odds: she eases herself up and steps over, sinking down onto Jon's lap carefully. He wraps his arms around her waist and tugs her up so she's sitting securely in place. The size of her belly is even more impressive at this angle, and there's no hope of him scooting his chair back in place beneath the table, but he doesn't mind at all. His lap has got to be more comfortable than the wooden chair, and his hand is free to knead at her right thigh now. He rests his other hand on her belly, and as Dany tucks her face against his neck, he marvels at how much calmer Aemon feels tonight than even last night. He both hopes and fears it's because he's readying for the birth.

He doesn't finish his food, but that fact is overlooked in light of Lyaella's confused complaints when it's time for Jon and Dany to leave. She doesn't want them to leave her, but she also doesn't want to go with them— finally, with tears in her eyes, she says she wants them to go look at the moonfish, too.

"We can't," Daenerys tells her gently. "We can meet you there later, but right now, we must speak with the Septon."

"He's not nice, Mamma. My moonfish are nice…"

"I know, sweetling. But sometimes, being queen means putting up with not-nice people." She steps closer to Arya and leans towards Lyaella, who's perched on Arya's hip. She kisses her. "We'll be there later, all right?"

Lyaella's nod feels like an act of duty, and to Jon, she's too young to have to feel that type of responsibility. But there's not much he can do; he and Dany _must_ go speak to the Septon if they have any chance of avoiding his lurking presence at the birth, and they'll just have to meet Lyaella later.

Dany's leg appears to still be bothering her as they walk. Her gait is closer to a waddle than a walk, and Jon wraps an arm around her hips and bites back a smile.

"It's not funny."

"It's not," he agrees. "But you _are_ adorable."

"I don't feel adorable. And I think he's finally dropped some. The pressure's ungodly."

That statement draws Jon to a stop. He looks down at her, his heart picking up.

"Do you want to go back and lie down?" But then he thinks about her being alone in Rhaella's Fortress without him, and he wishes he hadn't said it.

"No, let's just get through this," she says. "We need to come to a decision tonight."

They meet Grey Worm, Red Fly, Lord Tyrion, and Ser Davos at the main gates of the Garden. Ser Davos touches Daenerys's arm gently.

"Are you feeling up to this?" he asks.

"Yes," she says. "I have to be."

Tyrion appears nervous. "Since we're going into _their_ Sept, I'd like us to have a few more guards at hand. Who is watching the princess while she's separated from us?"

"Arya," Jon answers. He can't imagine who else Tyrion would think they'd leave her with during such a stressful time.

"Good." He looks at Grey Worm. "Can we gather more men?"

"We don't need more men," Grey Worm says firmly. "No one touches Queen Daenerys."

"Yes, your loyalty is undeniable, but I would feel better with a few more men," Tyrion persists.

Grey Worm looks to Jon and Daenerys. Jon doesn't think it would hurt to have more protection, especially if Dany's not feeling her best. He nods at Grey Worm.

"I'm not waiting here for more to arrive," Daenerys tells them. She shifts her weight again and presses her hand against her hip like she's trying to push away some ache. "We'll go with who we have, and our other men will join us when they can."

"Yes, Your Grace," Tyrion says. It seems he knows better than to argue with her when she's clearly in discomfort.

Jon wraps an arm around her waist as they walk. He keeps his hand pressed to the side of her belly, nervously waiting to see if it grows hard beneath his hand. But it remains the same firm softness he's used to the entire walk, so her discomfort must not be from labor beginning. The last thing he wants is her time arriving inside the Sept. He draws her to a stop right outside the crystal doors and voices that fear, but she shakes her head.

"Even if it does, I'll be able to make it back to Rhaella's Fortress in plenty of time. Let's do what we must and be done with it."

He's not optimistic they'll be able to do much of anything when they arrive. They're led through a seven-walled room of crystal towards a council room left bare except for two long snakewood tables set across from each other. The table closest to the seven windows on the back wall holds the High Septon and every member of the Most Devout; the table across from it is empty, telling Jon that's the table they're meant to occupy. The physical space left between both parties doesn't bode well.

Jon helps Dany sit first. They choose the two chairs in the middle of the table, directly across from the High Septon. Once Dany is settled, Jon sits at her left side. Their advisors sit after them, except for Grey Worm, who stands behind Dany's chair. The Septon doesn't take kindly to that.

"You may sit," he tells Grey Worm.

"I will stand," Grey Worm counters. His tone is so hard the Septon doesn't challenge him on it again.

"We were most pleased to hear you'd requested to meet with us again, Queen Daenerys," the Septon says. "You are here to request our Right of Blessing?"

Jon's already feeling his stomach fold into itself with rage. His heart takes up an uncomfortable pace in his chest.

"We are here to compromise," Daenerys corrects smoothly. "For all the reasons we have already shared with you— response to past trauma from my last birth, matters of propriety, and concerns of the health of myself and Prince Aemon— we will not allow any foreign presence inside the birthing chambers, nor directly following the birth. However, we understand the importance of faith, and we recognize our people's devotion to yours. We know our acceptance of it is important to the people, and we are willing to agree to…we are willing to allow you to…we will permit Aemon to be baptized underneath the Seven. I believe this takes place on the seventh day of life?"

It's as hard for Dany to get the proposal out as it is for Jon to even think about it. He feels unwell.

This offer surprises the Septon. He looks down the table at the members of the Most Devout; quite a few have lifted their eyebrows and are murmuring amongst themselves.

"We did not expect the offer," the Septon admits. "You have responded most violently to the prospect in the past."

Dany reaches over and grips Jon's thigh tightly beneath the table. That is the only indication of her torment. Jon's certain it's killing her pride just as it's killing his.

"We've had time to think over it," she manages. "We do have stipulations."

The Septon's lip curls up. "We would expect nothing less of you. What are these stipulations?"

"King Jon is to hold our son for the entire baptism. You may anoint him with your seven oils, pour water blessed by each of the Seven over his hair, and pray over him as much as you like. But no one holds him but the king. I will _not_ be swayed on that."

Jon has to force himself not to look at Dany in surprise. They hadn't discussed this beforehand, but already Jon feels the anxiety in his chest unwinding some. It helps more than he thought it would to imagine the scenario with Aemon in _his_ arms. He knows there's no chance anyone would have the opportunity to hurt him; Jon would die before they could. He would run them through with Longclaw— bite their throat out — wrap his fist around their neck 'til they were purple in the face— whatever he had to do. Anything in the world to keep his son safe. And Dany knows that.

"Ah," the Septon says. "Here we run into another problem."

"I would expect nothing less from _you_ ," Daenerys shoots back, her voice cool. Her hand tightens suddenly on Jon's thigh, and when he looks at her, he sees her other hand rubbing at her belly again. "What is this problem?"

"Mother and Father must be baptized beneath the Seven in order for the child to receive such a lenient baptism. For a child born of un-baptized parents, they must undergo a series of cleansings before they can receive the baptism, particularly if their mother was unbaptized at their time of birth. And if you won't permit anyone but the king to touch the baby, these cleansings won't be possible. Because of this, we must ask that you two receive a baptism here today, and in addition, we ask that Princess Lyaella is baptized alongside her sibling. After you are baptized, it is to be understood that you are official members of the Faith of the Seven, to follow our customs, attend our services, and support our Faith through all decisions, laws, and regulations. If these agreements are met, we are willing to deprive the baby of the Right of Blessing. For the greater good."

It doesn't take Jon long to realize they've been manipulated. He takes one look at the Septon's smug smile and understands, with a rush of rage, that this was the Septon's goal all along. He never truly cared about the Right of Blessing. Tyrion had said before that it was a rare, antiquated ceremony— they must've known— they must've known how Jon and Daenerys felt about birth— they knew if they—

Jon's so angry he can hardly think straight. He grasps Daenerys's hand beneath the table and clutches it tightly; her grip is equally furious. She's realized the same thing as him. The injustice of it flows through their touch, and Jon feels as if he's burning. He wants to hurt them, the Septon in particular. He wishes he had Longclaw at his hip. He wants to—

"And if we agree to these terms, you will reach peace with the crown?" Daenerys asks them. "No more demonstrations, no more attacks, no more vandalizing other religion's holy places?"

Jon's eyes snap to Daenerys. He stares at her, his heart plummeting. He can't believe she's even considering what they've demanded. She gives his hand a gentle squeeze, and he knows that's her way of telling him to trust her, but how can he go through with this?

"Certainly, Your Grace," the Septon promises. "The crown and the faith will continue on hand-in-hand, as it's meant to be."

Daenerys is thinking hard about something. Her plan, no doubt. Jon wishes he could figure out how to meld his mind with hers outside of the fire; he needs to know what she's thinking, what she's planning. Because he's going to need some solid assurances to allow himself to be baptized beneath these horrid gods.

"I have a few questions about your faith that I would like answered before I receive this baptism. First, it is understood that, despite what agreements might have been reached briefly with Queen Cersei, the Faith Militant is to remain disbanded, as per the agreement reached beneath King Jaehaerys."

"You'll remember, Your Grace, that part of that agreement with King Jaehaerys hinged upon the crown's support and acceptance of the Seven."

"Was that a 'yes' or a 'no'?"

"Yes, Your Grace. The Faith Militant is no longer active and will never be active beneath your rule."

"Or my children's rule," Daenerys adds sharply.

The Septon inclines his head slowly. "Yes, Your Grace. Forgive me, I am not attempting to manipulate you with half-phrases or omissions."

 _I doubt that very much,_ Jon thinks sourly.

"Let it also be understood that, as we are operating underneath King Jaehaerys's previous conciliations, that the Doctrine of Exceptionalism is part of that."

That statement draws every pair of eyes to Daenerys's face. Jon is the only one who continues gazing at the Septon. He's watching his face closely for any sign of deceit; should he see it, he's ready to nudge Grey Worm and have the Queen escorted out and the Septon arrested.

"There are not many Exceptionalists remaining on our council," the Septon finally answers. His equivocation is obvious. "But clearly we take no offense to your marriage, Your Grace. It is not so offensive as the marriages Targaryens have flaunted in days past."

Daenerys's hand withdraws from Jon's and goes to her belly. She cradles the heavy swell of it, though Jon finds no evidence that her protective hold is due to anything but love.

"I am pleased to hear you find my marriage palatable, but that is not what I asked. I am simply clarifying that I expect the Doctrine to be accepted and respected as it once was."

The Septon's eyes flicker from Jon to Daenerys, and then down to her belly.

"I was under the impression that the Doctrine was largely outdated and unneeded," he hedges. It's clear what he's really asking— or accusing.

Daenerys remains neutral. "If that is the case, it hurts no one to leave it in place."

Jon can feel Ser Davos and Lord Tyrion's surprised gazes, but he doesn't meet them. He truly has no answers: he didn't anticipate that Daenerys would address this issue, and though he's aware of why she likely is— as a safeguard no matter what the future might bring— it leaves him feeling conflicted. He assumes Lyaella's brief statement about the Septon arguing with Aemon played into Daenerys's decision to clarify this; she's likely simply seeking to eliminate all potential areas of future conflict between their children and the Faith. But _is_ this a potential area of conflict? Jon has convinced himself that it's impossible his children will one day want that…but how many Targaryens before them did? He's certain, too, that the idea of them being with _anyone_ would unsettle him, simply because he can't frame them that way in his mind; to him, they are his babies, so far removed from the age of marriage that the mere idea is laughable and bizarre. The thought of Lyaella marrying Temmo causes roughly the same spasm of discomfort as the idea of her marrying Aemon, though there are areas of more consternation in that scenario, as well as areas of less. His instinct is still to think it's disgusting and wrong— it's what he grew up hearing, after all— but he has to admit that the idea of Lyaella spending her life with someone who is part of her is reassuring in some strange way. He would trust Aemon more than others, he thinks. Yet it's all too strange to think of without deeply unsettling himself— Jon pulls himself from his uncomfortable thoughts, resolving himself not to fret about it. He has more important things to dwell on presently. And Dany's right to safeguard the future, even if it's guarding for something that will never come to pass.

"I suppose not," the Septon allows, still hesitant. He's sharing a series of looks with the men crowded around him. "And I suppose, if we are using past agreements, it is only fair to use them in full."

Daenerys inclines her head.

"Any further stipulations?" The Septon asks.

"If you wish for Princess Lyaella to be baptized along with her brother, she will be at my side or in my arms. The same rule goes for her as Aemon: no one may pick her up or touch her, beyond anointing her forehead with oils."

Jon is unsettled by this more than any other thought he's had while in this room. He doesn't know how they're going to be able to look Lyaella in the eyes and tell her she _has_ to be baptized; it feels wrong to do, especially considering she sees things in the flames probably more often than anyone. Especially considering she was heralded into existence by R'hllor. But the same can be said for him and Dany. He was brought back to life by R'hllor, and so was she, and they're going to pledge their devotion to the Seven?

His heart is pounding so hard it's making him feel shaky. He plans on pulling Dany to the side and sharing his concerns with her, but he isn't given the chance. Once the Faith agrees to Dany's last stipulation, she rises slowly to her feet.

"Where does this baptism take place? Here?"

"The sept-proper. Follow us, if you will, Your Graces…"

Jon catches Dany's hand as they trail after the Most Devout.

"Dany—"

She shakes her head. She slows long enough to lift onto her toes and kiss his lips. His uneasiness has grown to genuine nausea.

"It'll be okay," she murmurs to him. "It's not forever. We'll play along for a bit— just go along with it, please."

He prays she has a plan. All he can do is trust that she does. He stands at her side as the High Septon moves from altar to altar, gathering a vial of oil from the cupped hands of each figure, each one made of colored glass and no larger than a thumbnail. A clear vial from the Father, a green vial from the Mother, a red vial from the Warrior, a bronze vial from the Smith, a white vial from the Maiden, a purple vial from the Crone, and a black vial from the Stranger. He sets them all in a line on a table just ahead of them, and Jon takes Dany's hand as he begins speaking. He hardly hears a word of what he says; it's the same rubbish the septas would spew in Winterfell when he was a boy, the same nonsense Catelyn Stark believed in. Dany leans into Jon slightly as the first vial, the clear, is uncapped. The Septon prays as he touches Daenerys's chin and tips her head back, and Jon prays that won't lose control of himself and shove the Septon for daring to touch the queen. The Septon holds the clear vial over her face and lets a single drop land on her forehead. Jon's teeth grind together as the Septon rubs his thumb through the drop of oil, caressing it across Dany's forehead, over her temples, down the bridge of her nose. The smell reminds Jon of the Godswood, woodsy and strong. Dany keeps her eyes closed, and she seems almost peaceful. The green oil smells like lavender, like their baths, and Jon relaxes a bit at the smell. The red vial smells hot and spicy, and it turns Dany's skin red where it touches, but she doesn't flinch. The bronze vial smells irony like blood, and Jon feels his stomach clench. The purple— the purple almost reminds him of roses, and it's so familiar he feels a strange pull at his stomach. The black vial has a musky, pungent smell, one that is evident from the instant it's uncorked—

Dany jerks so violently in Jon's arms that the Septon jumps, surprised by her abrupt alarm. She pulls away from Jon and stumbles back from the Septon, her violet eyes wide and panicked. As she retreats, her heel hits the base of the statue of the Mother; Jon's heart rips to his toes as she loses her balance and tilts forward. He lunges towards her, but Grey Worm is there in an instant, his hands wrapping firmly around her upper arms. He eases her upright, but that does little to calm her. She meets Jon's eyes, and he can see in her deep distress that this was not part of her plan. She's breathing heavily, genuinely unnerved, though Jon can't determine what's happened to her. They hold their gaze for a moment longer, those small droplets of all the different oils sliding steadily down her face, and then she twists to the side and heaves over the marble floor.

Red Fly has his spear to the Septon's throat in the time it takes to blink. Jon's mind grows eerily still, and everything seems to slow to a crawl; he spins to face the Septon, his pulse throbbing in his head.

"What did you do?! What the _fuck_ did you do to her?!"

The Septon is shaking. He looks from Dany, who is still doubled over and trembling, and back to Jon, his eyes wide.

"I— I didn't— Your Grace, I truly— I didn't— look, see for yourself! See! It's not poison! It's oil! It's patchouli oil! Look!"

His hands quiver in fright as he lifts the black vial up and dumps a huge amount of it onto his own forehead. For good measure, he sticks his tongue out and lets a drop fall there. Perspiration beads at his hairline.

"It's just patchouli," he repeats faintly. "You can ask our supplier— you can have it tested— I didn't hurt her—I swear it, Your Grace…I don't know what happened, but I didn't hurt her!"

Red Fly looks at Jon, confusion blanketing his expression.

"Don't lower your spear," Jon orders, and then he turns and hurries over to his wife. He steps carelessly through the shallow puddle of sick coating the marble floor. He pulls her into his arms, and once she's safe there, Grey Worm steps over to the Septon, his spear joining Red Fly's.

"Dany, what is it?" Jon asks her. Tears are clogging his throat; he can hardly get his words out properly. He bends forward and looks at her face, but her eyes are still screwed shut against nausea. She's terribly pallid, and Jon is afraid. His heart is racing so quickly his lungs won't seem to inhale fully. "What did he do to you? What hurts? What do I do?"

She reaches up and grabs onto his arm.

"I want to go," she tells him. Her words shiver.

"Back home?"

"Just not here. I need to go."

That's all that needs to be said. He wraps an arm around her waist and helps her walk from the front altar, so singleminded in his task to get her out of this Sept that he hardly hears the complaints of the Most Devout. He doesn't know what they say, but whatever it is infuriates Grey Worm.

"Shut up!" Grey Worm booms. "You can have your own baptism with your head held in the bay if you want it so badly!"

Their complaints grow quiet. Tyrion hurries after Jon and Dany.

"Your Grace, what shall we do with the Septon?" Tyrion asks. He touches Dany's arm. "Are you all right?"

She's still trembling. Jon feels his concern morph into anger; he has to breathe deeply to keep from snapping at Tyrion, who hasn't done anything to deserve his wrath.

"Confine him here until we determine what happened," Jon orders. "I'll be back to speak with him as soon as I can. Assume, for the time being, that our deal is off."

Tyrion frowns deeply. "If it was simply oil—"

"The deal is off," Jon repeats, his tone piercing. He readjusts his hold on Dany, drawing her more securely to his side. "If that changes, you'll be the first to know."

Tyrion looks down at Daenerys. "Your Grace, the deal…"

"No, it's not right," Daenerys says. Her eyes drift shut again; Jon guesses she's still battling the urge to get sick. "I was wrong. It won't work. It's not right."

"What's not right? It _was_ working…tell us what happened…"

She shakes her head, though whether that's from a refusal to explain or an inability to, Jon's not sure. Either way, he supports her.

"You heard what she said. Tell them it's off. Keep them here. I will be here to deal with the consequences."

Ser Davos steps up beside Tyrion. "I'll go with you, Jon. Let's go back home."

The guards Grey Worm sent for earlier escort them back to the Garden, walking in a protective shield around them. The smallfolk they pass by on their walk back to the main gates stop and whisper in concern, some even growing brave enough to yell questions out about the queen's wellbeing.

Jon isn't sure what he's thinking as he does it, but he finds himself answering. _We were at the Sept,_ he tells them. It's true. _The queen was receiving a baptism before the birth…something happened…they did something to her…I don't know what happened…I think it was poison…_

Daenerys must have an idea of what he's instinctively doing because she leans further into his side and acts weaker. By the time they make it back to the gates, Jon's words have spread amongst the people enough that Jon can hear commotion building on the streets. He feels no guilt for the deception: the Septon was deceiving them for months. Let the people think their good queen was attempting to join their Faith only to be betrayed and poisoned. If the Septon wants to try to turn the people against them, they'll do the same. It may be true that the people love their faith, but did their faith give them scholarhouses, sickhouses, fresh fruit and vegetables and meats, clothing, shelter, libraries, and rookeries? _We should've played this angle all along,_ Jon thinks. _The Septon has no power without the people. None at all._

Daenerys steps from Jon's supportive grasps once the gate to the Garden is closed behind them. She's still slightly shaky, but she seems stable enough.

"Let's go to the library," she tells Jon, and though he doesn't understand why, he follows.

She sinks onto the closest sofa once they arrive. The cavernous room— bursting with thousands of books towering over them on shelves twice Jon's height— glows with soft orange light from hundreds of reading lamps littered throughout the quiet space. It's nearly empty except for a few handmaidens reading in a far corner, curled up in armchairs with their stockinged feet tucked beneath them, steaming mugs awaiting them on the side table.

"They're too far to hear," Daenerys murmurs, nodding at the handmaidens. She strokes her belly; her fingers are still quivering. "I'm sorry. I…Jon, there's things that I…things I can't explain without it sounding foolish. I don't know why it affected me so much."

"It won't sound foolish to me," Jon says at once. He sits beside her and faces her. "What happened? What hurt you?"

"Nothing hurt me. It was that last oil. The one for the Stranger. The smell of it…Jon, it was what Bloodraven smelled like— so markedly so that it sickened me. And I know he's gone and I know it was just a scent, just a smell, but when I smelled it…" she trails off. She frowns deeply, shame lurking in the violet hue of her eyes. "It was like I was there again in my own head with him. And I could feel him there—" she stops abruptly and swallows. Jon feels his heart tug at her obvious fear. "It upset me. I didn't mean to scare you. I'm sorry. I couldn't stop it."

"You don't have to apologize. I'm just glad you weren't hurt," Jon whispers. He leans in and sets both hands on her belly. He's relieved to feel Aemon nudge against his hand. "What were you planning, Dany? He was trying to get us to do that the entire time. He never wanted the Right of Blessing, not really."

"I know," Daenerys nods. "I realized that when you did. I intended to go through with the baptisms, all of them, but I also intended to take the Faith down from within once I had. He won't be manipulating us like that. He would've thought he won, but before he knew it, the Faith wouldn't be in his control anymore." There's a short pause. She looks down at her stomach. "But we aren't doing that now. That— memory, that smell…that was a sign, Jon. We can't do it that way. It's not right."

He's felt that all along, but he doesn't tell her that. She knows how he feels— how he's felt.

"So how should we do it?" Jon questions.

"You already know. You're the one who gave me the idea."

"We turn the people against the Septon? They'll realize you weren't really poisoned, I don't know why I said that. And I'll bet the Septon tries to spin what happened as some…sign of our unholiness. He'll turn it in his favor. He'll say the seven hells opened up and screamed when you stepped into the sept or some other idiocy…"

"It won't matter what he says. Because we're going to keep him and the Most Devout in that Sept cut off from everyone until _we've_ had a chance to speak. We'll tell them it's to 'investigate' what happened, and with the people thinking I've been poisoned, a much smaller percentage of them will protest it. We only need them confined for a day at most. Just long enough for us to say what we need to say."

"And what are we going to say?" Jon asks. "You're thinking of Jaehaerys and his Seven Speakers, I take it?"

"Yes, only we have an advantage. He had to have seven people travel on foot from village to village to preach his message— we need only write a letter, have our scholars duplicate it, and let those letters float through our kingdom. Our people will read it, and they'll spread it, and in a matter of days, it'll be universally known."

Jon's seen firsthand how quickly news travels within the kingdom. When the queen first started showing with Aemon, despite how rare her public appearances were due to their caution surrounding Spring Fever, word of another heir spread so quickly throughout Westeros that Samwell heard it from a handmaiden in Highgarden the following evening. News of the sacrifices in Essos had spread quickly, too.

"And what will we say?" Jon wonders. "We'll tell them the Septon attempted to kill you?"

"No. We'll do what you suggested before in our bedchambers. We'll tell them the truth. Everything. We tell them why we were so afraid to have a stranger in my birthing chambers— we tell them what happened when Lyaella was born— we tell them that we have _nothing_ against the Faith of the Seven, but that as we allow all in our kingdom the freedom to believe in their gods, we seek freedom to believe in ours. And they'll understand _why_ we believe in R'hllor after they read the things that have happened to us. We should've been clear with them from the start."

It's risky. Jon can see many places this plan can fail them, many areas the Faith of the Seven might be able to worm in and twist their narrative to their own liking. And it's not an easy narrative to swallow in the first place.

But it's their last chance at a non-violent solution, short of selling their own freedom and safety and bending entirely to the Faith's will. And they won't be doing that.

He suddenly understands why they've come here to the library. "We're doing it now?"

"Yes. We must if we hope to do it at all. We can write it now and leave it behind with the library maesters to have it duplicated. What do you think about it?"

"I think it's our best bet at this point."

She still looks pallid, though, and when he pulls her into a hug, he can feel how her heart is _still_ pounding.

"Don't you want to rest first? We could hold the Septon there for a bit longer. You can sleep and then we can—"

"I want to do it now," she interrupts firmly.

He nods. "All right. I'll get paper and quills brought to us. And ginger tea, to settle your stomach?"

She nods. The kiss she presses to his shoulder is tender with gratitude. He leaves her side long enough to seek parchment, quills, and ink from one of the library maesters, and then he asks one of their guards to send for tea from the kitchens. Jon pulls one of the tables up to the sofa so Dany doesn't have to sit in a wooden chair, and once they've got their quills dipped in ink, he looks at her.

"Everything?"

"Everything relevant. And most things are."

They write at a slow pace at first, pausing every few sentences to sip at tea (or ale in Jon's case), reread what they've already written, or get the other's opinion on certain details. Dany grows more impatient as time drags on: she shifts frequently on the sofa, and her hand trembles a bit as she writes with renewed urgency. Jon assumes she's writing about something traumatic from her past; Gods know she's got plenty of memories that haunt her. He struggles with putting his own life into words for the same reason.

He soon realizes his assumption was wrong, though. Her bouts of shifting and heavy exhales turn to eerie stillness; he glances over at her as her quill grows quiet, and he watches the way she folds forward, her eyes squeezed shut against something. _Something physical,_ he realizes then.

She grabs onto the table and stands unsteadily without warning. Jon rises with her.

"Are you all right?"

"I need the privy," she says, and she doesn't pause long enough for Jon to respond. Her gait is wobbly and waddling; he catches up with her quickly, certain that something is wrong. And certain he already knows what it is.

"Is it your time?"

His heart thuds strangely. Her voice is calm when she responds, but it's a forced calmness.

"I think so."

Jon's strange-beating heart slams to a stop. Her hands tremble as she grips her belly. Jon can't look away from her eyes; he feels frozen. 

"It's not terrible yet," she assures him. "The pain is bearable and irregular. We have time. I want us to try and finish this before we go home."

His heart resumes, but it lurches violently in his chest with each pound. When she leans against his side, he grips her so tightly he fears it might hurt her, his throat narrowing with pain— love— fear— excitement—

"Dany…" he doesn't know what to say. Suddenly, he can't speak for how afraid he is.

"It could be a false-start. Let's try to stay and finish this while we can." Her apprehension leaks into her words. He holds her tighter in response, but as they reach the small privy, she pulls from his embrace. "I'll be right back. Could you send for Aethel?"

He nods. "Yes. I'll send for her. Are you okay alone?"

"Yes. Fetch Aethel."

He can't get himself to go very far from the privy door. He walks up to one of the studying handmaidens and asks her to go get the Grand Maester for the queen. Her eyes widen, and she scrambles from her armchair, bolting through the library at once. Jon's relieved by her urgency: he knows she'll get Aethel to them quickly, and he's right: Dany's only just stepped from the privy when Aethel comes hurrying in. She steps past Jon and takes Dany's hands in hers, murmuring quiet questions and assurances as she leads her back over to the sofa. Aethel sits on her other side and examines her belly while Jon looks on, his pulse hammering away in his temples.

"Can I stay to finish this?" Daenerys asks her, gesturing at the parchment strewn over the tables.

"Do you want to stay to finish it?"

"Yes."

"Then there's no reason you shouldn't. I'll stay in here with you, and the moment you're feeling too unwell to continue on, the king and I will get you to the bathing chambers. Is that still what you want?"

Dany nods. "Yes. But have my bedchambers readied, too, just in case."

Aethel pats Dany's hand gently. She rises and leaves long enough to get Rhaella's Fortress prepared for the birth, and Jon joins Dany on the sofa. She leans against him and pulls his hand up to her lips. He feels his heart wedge high in his throat as she kisses him.

"You're sure you want to stay?" he asks her.

"Yes. I feel strong. Let's finish this, and then let's meet our son."

Those words set his heart aflame with love and pride like nothing else.

X.

Of all the unexpected things in his life, the release and relief he feels after writing of that stormy night on that ship is one of the most surprising.

He alternates between reliving the horrible past and holding his wife through the present, and somehow, the two meld and twine together in a way different from how he expected. Instead of the past intensifying his anxiety, he gathers strength from it. _It's different this time,_ he realizes, his eyes on his wife's intact hands as her quill dances over her parchment. _It's different from before,_ he thinks, his hand in hers as she paces through a contraction, her legs steady and face flushed with color. _The past won't ever come again,_ he thinks as she gratefully accepts multiple cups of water and tea from Aethel.

It's a relief to hear her breathing deeply at his side as he writes of those three days without her— a relief to feel the heat of her body against his, the sound of her voice as she murmurs to their son. She comforts Aemon, as if his fear is what she's most worried about, and it only makes Jon love her more.

When they're done, when they've written all they can, Dany touches his letter. Her question is clear in her bright eyes, and Jon nods without hesitation. She takes his letter, and he takes hers, and she lays across the sofa with her head in his lap. They've spoken of their traumas on many occasions, the ones they suffered alone and the ones they've shared, but there's something different about reading it in each other's words. Jon strokes her hair as he reads hers, and by the time he makes it to the night of Lyaella's birth, he's bending over and pressing kisses to her face, his own face burning hot beneath his tears. His chest could burst open from the pressure built up within it; crying only alleviates some of it, but it's a good ache. It's from love and gratitude, pride and tenderness— pain is only part of it.

His words affect Dany just the same, though he can't imagine what in his account could be anywhere near as moving as hers. She wraps her arms around his waist and buries her face into his stomach. Her kisses are a soft, tearful pressure against his belly, and for a minute, Jon can only laugh, thinking of how silly it is that she's kissing _his_ stomach right now. He resumes stroking her hair, and when she draws her knees up as far as they'll go, he moves his hand to her back and rubs gentle circles over her spine.

"Are you ready to go back now?" he asks her.

"Not yet." Her words are muffled into his jerkin. "Jon, I knew, but I didn't."

He knows what she's speaking of. He leans over and kisses her temple.

"I knew, but I didn't, too," he admits.

They know each other so well and they've talked about that time so many times that Jon understood her experience in theory, but never as intimately as he does after having read her words. He almost doesn't want anyone else to read it; it feels too raw, too private, too sacred. But maybe that's the point. He can't imagine _anyone_ , even the most devout of the Faith's supporters, reading that and feeling as if Daenerys isn't in the right for everything she's felt regarding the Faith of the Seven and the High Septon's actions. If it doesn't sway them, he doesn't think anything in the world will. King Jaehaerys was right— words are powerful. More powerful than war, more powerful than swords.

"I love you," she tells him, and he can feel dampness against his stomach from her tears. His own eyes burn. "I'm frightened, but I'm excited, too. I think I'm more excited than frightened. I never imagined that would be possible."

Oh, he loves her— it's an intensity that sweeps over him and swallows him whole. He pulls her upright and hugs her close, his heart thudding against hers, his emotion wrapped tightly around the both of them. It's a tightness mirrored in her taut womb, and as her breathing hitches and deepens, he finds himself breathing with her. If he could just hold her here forever, he'd be happy.

He's not afraid when he hears Arya and Lyaella's voices. If anything, he's excited. Lyaella bounds to them so fast she's nothing but a silver-and-green blur. Dany and Jon part to make room for Lyaella to climb up between them, and as soon as she sees their faces, hers falls. She touches their wet cheeks: Jon's first, and then Dany's.

"Why? Why are you crying?" she asks. She lays against Dany's stomach, her arms wrapping around her mother. She looks sick with worry. "What, Mamma? Was the Septon mean?"

"No. We're okay. We're excited, Lyaella," Dany explains. "Aemon's going to be here soon."

Lyaella's reaction is comical. She sits up so fast she loses balance and starts to topple backwards. Jon reaches out and grasps her arm tightly, preventing her from falling off the sofa. She smiles and smiles, her eyes glowing with joy— and then she begins to bawl. Jon's taken aback.

"Ly, it's okay," he soothes her, startled by her volatile reaction. "Mamma's going to be okay."

"I-I-I-I-I s-s-so— I'm s-s-so — I'm so _h-happy, Fawder,"_ she weeps, and even Arya— who paled at the news— begins to laugh. Dany opens her arms for Lyaella, and Lyaella crawls back into her lap and cuddles up to her, sobbing with abandon into her dress. Dany's smiling as she strokes her hair, her own eyes teary.

"Oh, I love you, my dear heart," Dany murmurs to her. She presses her face into Lyaella's curls; Jon knows how soothing the minty scent of her soap is, and that's evidenced in how Dany relaxes against the sofa cushions. " _You_ make me so happy."

Lyaella sits up and reaches to touch Dany's face. She holds it between her hands seriously. "Do you need me right now, Mamma?"

Dany hugs her again. "Absolutely. I need you so much right now, Lyaella."

"I can get my _hawp_ for you?"

"We've got it at home waiting for us. Right now, I just want loads of hugs."

Lyaella throws her arms around Dany's neck with delight. "I can do that, _Muver_ , I can give such perfect hugs to you, my best best mamma, and my best best _buver._ "

Lyaella clutches Dany and holds her sweetly for as long as her mother allows it. They send their letters off, first for Tyrion and Davos to review, and then to be copied and distributed amongst their people. Grey Worm, Sansa, Gendry, and Yara arrive to check on Daenerys, and once they've determined her to be doing well, they stay simply for Lyaella's adorable commentary.

When Dany finally requests to return home, Arya pulls Lyaella from her arms. Lyaella's so tired from being cuddled up to her mother for so long that she has to hold her eyes wide to keep them from shutting.

"What now, Mamma?" Lyaella asks sleepily. "My _hawp_? I can read to you?"

"I need you to go get some sleep so you can be well-rested for when Aemon comes. Okay? Sansa says you can cuddle up with her and read your books to her. She's going to stay in Auntie Arya's bedchambers, so you'll be so close by, and if I need you, I'll send someone to wake you and bring you straight to me."

It takes effort for her to get the last few words out. She grips her hips and struggles to resist the urge to double over. Jon grabs Lyaella and hoists her up into his arms before she realizes the depth of her mother's pain. He turns them so Lyaella is facing away from Dany, giving Dany space to lean forward and breathe through the pain gripping her without worrying about Lyaella. Lyaella twists in Jon's arms like she's trying to look back at her mother, but Jon bounces her a couple times in his arms until she laughs, and then she leans back to look up at him, a smile lighting her tired eyes.

"I have a question, Ly," Jon says. Over top of Lyaella's head, he sees Arya gathering Dany's hair over her shoulders and stroking her back, and he feels affection flood his chest.

"Yes?"

"What did the…farmer say to the dragon?"

Lyaella begins giggling at once, pleased that her father's making a dragon joke. "I don't know! I don't know, Daddy! What did he say?!"

Jon doesn't know either. He hadn't thought it through. He just wanted to keep Lyaella from seeing Dany in pain; he wants her to think of her mother's excitement as she drifts to sleep tonight, not her pained breaths or tense posture. His mind scrambles for a punchline.

"He said…stop burning my crops!"

Lyaella stares at Jon for a moment, her smile slowly inching off her face. Then she seems to get a grip on herself. She falls into a round of obviously fake laughter and pats Jon's cheek fondly.

"I get it! That's funny, Daddy, I love that one very much!" she lies.

"Gendry's are better, huh?"

"Practice makes perfect," she tells him earnestly. She lifts up slightly and kisses his beard. She pulls at it idly after she sits back in his arms. "Daddy?"

"Yes?"

"Will you come get me if Aemon starts to be borned when I'm asleep?"

Jon nods firmly. "I promise. And remember, if Mother needs you, she'll send for you at once."

Lyaella nods seriously. "Just shake me one time, Daddy, and I'll wake up so fast to be there for my mamma. I'm going to make her paper flowers before I go to sleep 'cause that will make her smile when she's getting better."

Jon smiles. "She'll love that."

She turns now to glance back at her mother, but thankfully, when Jon turns to look, she's standing straight again. She smiles at Lyaella, though Jon sees sweat glistening on her forehead, and her hands tremble slightly at her sides. She loops them behind her back.

"Don't give Sansa trouble tonight," she warns Lyaella, half-teasing. "When I see you next, you'll be even closer to being a sister."

Lyaella hops excitedly in Jon's arms. He tightens his grip to keep her from falling, smiling along with her enthusiasm.

"Come on, Lyaella," Gendry says, opening his arms for her. She falls into his embrace easily. "I'll carry you back home. We're going to eat a snack, tell your Auntie Sansa loads of jokes, and then sneak some figs. How does that sound?"

"Very good!" Lyaella approves. "But if my mother needs me—"

"Yes, you'll be free to leave at once," Gendry says solemnly.

The intensity of her excitement appears to have evaporated her exhaustion. The loud sound of her animated chatter is audible even after she and Gendry have walked completely from the library. Arya snorts.

"She's going to _terrorize_ them tonight," she mutters. "They'll be begging you for a sleeping draught, Aethel."

"They've likely got the second hardest job." Jon feels her eyes settle on him. "The third," she corrects.

Jon swallows the anxiety building up his throat. He returns to Daenerys's side and takes her hand.

"Let's go home," he tells her. Rhaella's Fortress is beckoning him. He wants Dany somewhere safe and familiar, and when Aemon takes his first breaths, he wants it to be surrounded by the comforts of _home_.

 _He'll be the first of us to experience that,_ Jon realizes. His eyes burn at the thought. _The first of us to be born in their true home, surrounded by loved ones, at peace and safe. That's different, too. That's what we fought for._

He walks from the library with Dany, leaving the balled up papers and crossed out sentences of their past behind them. They've chosen what they're taking with them, and it's strength.


	7. Light and Bright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your comments and kudos last chapter!! This chapter is exceptionally long, partly because I'm gearing up for a time-jump. 
> 
> Just a head's up-- Lyaella is a POV character this chapter, and like in all children's POVs, she's (understandably) an unreliable narrator at times! Adults rarely give children the full, unedited truth, and despite her precociousness, she's still just a little one trying to make sense of the world. Her emotions color everything she interprets and experiences, so don't expect pure truth in anything she sees/discovers.

I.

Auntie Sansa says she must eat all her supper before she leaves the small table in Auntie Arya’s flat, but Lyaella doesn’t _want_ to eat. She only wants her mamma.

She was having fun before. She went to the pretty forges with Gendry, and then Auntie Sansa showed her how to stitch and fix a little baby hole in her blanket all by herself…but then Sansa took her book away and told her she _had_ to eat her supper, even though it was meat _and_ she wasn’t hungry, and Lyaella wasn’t having fun anymore. And then the hurting in her heart started. It didn’t stop.

She knows she’s big now— and about to be a sister on top of it, something she’s wanted for so _very, very_ long, and another reason she must be big— but it feels different to be in Auntie Arya’s flat without Arya, Daddy, or Mamma. Different to not have them there taking care of her. Lyaella sits at the tall table and peers around the room warily, wondering if the ceilings were always this high and the painted walls always this dark. It was certainly never this quiet: she can hear words drifting from soldiers far outside the walls, bits and pieces of whatever things they’re up to. And those things are usually interesting to Lyaella: she often tries to get closer and eavesdrop to see what they’re talking about or doing. Everything in the world is interesting, but right now, there’s only one thing that can hold Lyaella’s focus, and that’s her mother. She needs her because— because— because so many reasons. Mostly because she loves her. That’s what it’s called when her chest feels like this, Daddy said so, and Daddy knows everything in the whole world.

And now her heart hurts for Father, too. She frowns and sags in her seat. She doesn’t even want to look at her supper; she pushes her plate away, but that doesn’t make the food disappear. Gendry lifts the meaty duck leg from her plate and holds it in front of her face, and Lyaella jumps back. Her spine gets the shivers.

“Duck?” he coaxes.

She sees a flash of a different leg, much larger and torn and crystalized in pink-hued snow. Her tummy feels angry.

“No. I don’t like meat,” she blurts. Her eyes feel hot. ‘Cause mamma and daddy would know that already.

The leg is replaced by an apple. It’s a splash of bright green. It makes Lyaella think of tufts of grass, baby sprouts in the garden, and frothy cups of bad-green that sizzle you right to your bones.

“Apple?” he asks. He has hope for this one— Lyaella can hear it in his voice. She wants to say yes so she doesn’t hurt his feelings, but she can smell the frothy bad-green, and it burns her nose.

“No, thank you,” she whispers.

A roll. Lyaella shakes her head. A bunch of perfectly-round and shiny grapes. Lyaella asks to be excused. Another plate of figs. Lyaella swipes all of them into her pockets when Gendry’s head is turned to save them for Mamma.

“Oh,” Gendry says, looking back at her plate. Yara is there now, tall and serious-faced, though she smiles at Lyaella. “You ate those quickly. Good!”

Lyaella sets her hands over her bulging pockets and tries to smile back at Yara, but she doesn’t feel very smiley. She thinks Auntie Sansa will make her stay at the table since she didn’t really eat her supper up like she was meant to, but Sansa starts to talk with Yara, and she probably forgets everything except that. Because when Lyaella asks Gendry if she can go to bed, Gendry scoops her up without Auntie Sansa saying _no_. Auntie Sansa doesn’t even look at Lyaella’s plate, even though she told her eating was so important she couldn’t keep reading her book until she ate. Lyaella is annoyed by that, but she feels better once she’s held in Gendry’s arms. The room seems less big, and her chest feels less heavy. She sets her cheek against his shoulder and holds him as he carries her, comforted by the motion of his walking and the feeling of his heart _boom-boom_ ing in his chest. He doesn’t smell like Father, but he’s warm like him, and strong like him, too.

He sits on Auntie Arya’s bed with her. Lyaella doesn’t want to leave his arms so she hugs him tighter.

“What do you have in your pockets, Lyaella?” he asks.

“Figs.”

“What…” he sighs. “How many? All of them?”

She pauses. She squirms until she can reach into her pockets, and she counts them quietly to herself. _One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine…_

“I have nine figs!” She looks up at Gendry to see if he’s proud of her counting, but he just looks confused.

“And _why_ have you put nine figs into your pockets?”

She thinks of Mother. She feels scared to think of her being hungry.

“For Mamma,” she answers. “‘Cause having babies is hard work, and she might be hungry.”

“If she is, someone there will bring her food. Arya or your Father or Maester Aethelwyne.” He talks like people talk when they’re trying to make her not-upset anymore. It makes her think hard. She must be upset if he’s talking like that. Something must be bad to make her upset. Her heart starts running in her chest.

“If— if— if Mamma gets sick like Daena—”

“Mamma won’t,” Gendry interrupts. He sounds like he’s seen it in his dreams, maybe. He is very sure. “She’ll be fine. Let’s get some sleep, all right? I’ll tell Auntie Sansa to come in here and cuddle you. Do you want me to take your boots off or can you unlace them?”

“I can,” Lyaella says at once. “My mamma and daddy teached me…”

Her eyes feel hot like she’s staring at the fire, but she’s not. There’s no fire. Just a bad feeling inside that makes her very scared and sad. She doesn’t know what it is, but she knows she wants her mamma and her daddy so bad. Thinking of them makes the hurt bigger.

“What?” Gendry asks, his voice soft.

“I want my mamma and my daddy.” Her voice is so tiny! She didn’t mean it to be. But she guesses her voice knew how sad she was. She begins to feel scared. She doesn’t want to feel like this, but she can’t get to mamma and daddy, and she doesn’t know how else to feel better but to see them. “I want them, Gendy.”

“I know you do. You’ll see them soon, I’m sure of it. You can be brave now, can’t you? Brave Princess Lyaella. Here…” he sets her down on the mattress, and that only makes the bad feeling worse. Lyaella shivers, and her throat hurts. Her eyes hurt, too. “Take your boots off while I go get Auntie Sansa.”

She tries. But as soon as she’s alone in the bedchambers— with its dark dark wardrobe-insides, the midnight peeking at her through the open door, the cold chills in the air, and the silence that makes her ears feel wide— she starts to cry. Her fingers shake too much; she can’t undo her laces even though she knows how…she does know how! She does! But she can’t do it.

She wants Mamma. And Daddy. And Ghost. And Moonbloom. And Arya. And Drogon. And Aemon.

Aemon holds her. She saw it. She was crying so hard…and she was so full of these bad feelings…and her brother hugged her until those bad feelings were squeezed right out. She wants him most of all, to be big with him, to be able to go where she wants when she wants all the time. If she could go anywhere in the world, she’d go right to Mamma and Daddy. But right now she’s little-big…and she’s alone…and she’s afraid…

She curls up on the bed and hugs her blanket. The bed is so high she doesn’t want to jump from it. She thinks about sneaking back home to Mamma, but the door feels far away, and the corridors will be so dark…and the darkness is very bad, she knows it— she’s always known it— it’s where the Great Other is, in dark corners and in dark minds and dark dreams, and she wants the light…

She lifts her face from the mattress and looks quickly at the wardrobe, at the dark-insides. She sees something glowing in there. Like eyes. Her body becomes so heavy she can’t move at all. All she can do is stare at it. Then she thinks of Brother and what he said one time. _Nothing beats fire._ And she is fire.

Her heart is loud as she climbs down from the tall bed. She sneaks up to the wardrobe, feeling so scared that she wants to run more than anything, but she doesn’t. She takes a deep breath before slamming the doors shut on the darkness and the eyes.

“No!” she tells the wardrobe, the darkness, the eyes. “No, _no_! That’s naudy to be here!”

“All right, Princess Lyaella.” Auntie Sansa sounds close. Lyaella rushes towards the door to tell her about the eyes. “Time to ready for bed. And look who’s here for you!”

“Auntie Sansa, there’s some— there’s some eyes—” she stops talking because Ghost and Nymeria walk in, and that’s more important than talking. Her whole body becomes laughing-happy. She hops and laughs and rushes towards the two direwolves. She buries her face in Ghost’s fur and reaches a hand back to grab Nymeria’s. The eyes don’t matter anymore because Ghost and Nymeria can eat them up.

“Ghost!! Nymeria!!”

“I thought you’d be pleased. Come now, let’s go to the privy to ready for bed.”

“Ghost and Nymeria come with us,” Lyaella orders.

“I don’t see why they shouldn’t.”

Auntie Sansa cleans her teeth, combs her hair, and helps her from her dress. She lifts her into a bath, but the water is far too cold, and Lyaella jumps to her feet as soon as she sits in it, her teeth chattering.

“It’s cold!”

Sansa looks confused. “What? It’s steaming…”

“No! It’s cold, Sansa!”

“Well, sit down and I’ll have it warmed some more…but I don’t think I can make it much hotter without it scalding you…”

She has warm water added to it, but even that doesn’t help much, and it’s another handmaiden and not Ezhi who does it. Ezhi would know how to do it right. And Mamma, too. But Lyaella doesn’t have them, so she sits and shivers as Sansa scrubs her hair, feeling unhappy and a bit angry. Not a lot angry, just a bit, but enough that she crosses her arms and doesn’t want to talk.

“There we are,” Sansa finally says. She washes her so much longer than Mamma does or Ezhi does. And the water doesn’t smell like bathwater. It just smells like regular water. There’s no flower smell at all. “Let’s dry you and tuck you up.”

Lyaella shivers in a puddle of water on the rug as Sansa towels her dry. Ghost and Nymeria are waiting on the bed when they go back to the bedchambers, and they are sorry for her. Sansa pulls her gown over her head and picks her up, dropping her gently onto Arya’s bed. Lyaella scoots over to lay between Ghost and Nymeria at once. She hides her face in Ghost’s fur, and Nymeria licks her hand. Some of her angriness tiptoes away.

“What shall we read tonight? Hmm? _The Little Lord of Westberry? A Resplendent Journey? Five Cats and a Mouse?”_

Those are fun books, but Lyaella’s memorized all the rhymes and all the words, and they make her bored now.

“No. My family book!” She’s happy again thinking about it. She was reading it this morning, the chapter about Daenys. She wants to finish it.

Auntie Sansa doesn’t respond for so long that Lyaella counts twenty-seven of Ghost’s breaths.

“I’m afraid I don’t have that one,” she finally says. Her voice is sorry, and that is silly to Lyaella. Who would grab _The Little Lord of Westberry_ but not her family book?

“Why? Where is it?”

“Your chambers, I suppose. How about _The Little Lord of Westberry_? Your uncle Bran loved that one when he was little…here we go…’once there was a little lord with iron-feet…’”

“‘Whenever he was bored he would stamp a beat’,” Lyaella finishes. She yawns. She doesn’t want to hear again about the little lord of Westberry or his stupid iron feet. People don't even have iron in their feet, they just have twenty-six bones. “I go to sleep now.”

“Oh…okay.” Lyaella feels the bed move as Auntie Sansa leans in. She tucks the blankets around her, places Lyaella’s special blanket in her arms, and kisses her hair. “Goodnight. I’ll wake you if Mother sends for you.”

It reminds her how much her whole chest hurts for her. Her eyes burn again. “I want her now.”

“Oh, I know,” Sansa coos. But no, she doesn’t. Because she’s not Lyaella Targaryen. There’s just one Lyaella Targaryen, and that’s Lyaella, and she’s the only one who knows how she feels.

“Rest a bit and I’m sure she’ll send for you soon,” Sansa finishes. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Lyaella says, but what she wants to say is _badnight._

Sansa leaves, and Lyaella snuggles closer to Ghost. She pets his thick fur as she yawns.

“There’s eyes, Ghost,” she tells him. “In the insides of the wardrobe…there’s eyes…”

Nymeria curls her body around Lyaella’s, and Ghost does the same thing, too, so she’s as warm as a little baby egg inside a cuddly nest. She feels happier then. Ghost protects her all the time, and he’ll protect her now and keep her as safe as if she really were a little baby egg. And she doesn’t want to go to sleep, but her sleepiness is bossy. She gets so, so tired…and then she isn’t with Ghost and Nymeria anymore. She’s inside dark dreams. She is lost inside a cave, running through tunnels with walls of ruby-colored eyes, a thousand of them…they follow her no matter how hard she runs. The floor is made of mouths, and as she runs, teeth nip and tear at her…soon her feet are ripped open and she’s slipping on blood…she tries to keep going, but each step feels like she’s running on knives…she falls to her hands and knees, and the mouths bite into her flesh…they clamp down on her limbs and chain her facedown on the floor, and she weeps as they rip open her tummy, her womb, her chest, her throat…they feast on her eyes and lips, and they swallow her down to darkness—

She’s alone. In the dark, in the night, in the cold. She’s standing barefoot on something squishy and hot…something slick and pulsing…when she looks down, she sees the meat, the body, the piece of the ice circle…it makes her sick, and when she vomits, her sick melts the snow, and she can see in the spot it melts that there are bones beneath them. Layers and layers of old ice circles…all the times the Great Other was called…they are calling him now, and she’s here, too, and he wants her. He’s always wanted her. She doesn’t have her sword or her dagger or her dragon…and she’s alone…it’s what she’s scared of most of all…

But then she hears her brother… _AELLA! AELLA!_ he booms. She feels all the weight lift from her chest, and when he reaches her, she looks down at her trailing innards to sees all her wounds stitching themselves closed. Aemon grasps her and crushes her to his chest, wrapping her tight inside his furs, encasing her in the quiet heat, the quiet lovely-dark. She feels his arms shift, and then she feels pressure against the side of her head…it takes her a moment to realize he’s clamped his hands over her ears, blocking out the remaining whistle of the frigid wind. And she doesn’t know why, but him covering her ears scares her more than anything else. More than being ripped open, more than being alone in the cold, more than knowing the Great Other is coming, more than not having her dagger or her dragon…because if Brother is covering her ears…who is covering his? Who is protecting him? She can’t be without him— not now, not then, not ever—

But it’s too late. The horn rips through her muscles and sets fire to her bones. And Brother explodes around her, his pieces showering down on the ground, his blood soaking and burning through her skin…a thousand voices laugh as she collapses from an agony so deep and so ringing that she can can’t recall anything, not even her own name. She feels an emptiness more complete than death. And the laughing grows. _Feast on the ashes of his black, black heart,_ the voices taunt. The Septon kneels in Aemon’s bloodied remains, the Stranger leering over his right shoulder, ruby eyes leaking blood as he howls with mirth. The Septon reaches into the bloody mush in the snow, between the blasted ribs and shattered bones that used to be her best friend, and he scoops out Aemon’s still-beating heart. Lyaella tries to drag herself back from the Septon as he brings Aemon’s heart closer, but her stitches were torn open by the booming sound, and her innards chain her to the ground. _Eat it,_ the Septon, the Stranger, the thousand voices bark. They force her down into the hot-cold snow— they hold the thrumming heart to her lips— _Eat it! Eat your brother-king’s black heart._ It’s shoved so hard against her mouth and nose that she can’t breathe, but she refuses to part her lips. The Septon’s hand goes to the bloodied snow, to her mangled insides, and he scoops out a hot handful of bloodied, snowy nothingness. _And wash it down with your children—_

“Lyaella!!”

She’s back in Arya’s bed. She is screaming screaming screaming, and the bed is wet and warm around her. She struggles to suck in air through her screaming, and when Gendry squeezes her in his arms, that only makes breathing harder.

“What?! What is it?!” He sounds scared, and that scares Lyaella more. She gasps harder.

“Lyaella, stop!” Auntie Sansa orders. “Stop and breathe a minute— tell us what’s wrong— does something hurt?”

“I—I—I—” she can’t remember! She doesn’t know! She just feels so scared! She twists in Gendry’s arms and searches the room, her heart beating hard. She sees a dark puddle where she had an accident in the bed— Ghost and Nymeria’s fur standing tall with fright— the dark dark wardrobe-insides—

Her lungs feel twisted up. She starts to gasp again.

“There’s eyes! There’s eyes!” she sees thousands of them and she feels pain in her feet. She grabs onto Gendry tighter and hides her face into his neck, shivering and shivering. “The eyes, I don’t like them— I scared— I want Daddy— I want Daddy, please, please, please! I want my daddy!!”

She tries to squirm from Gendry’s arms and run to the door, to go back to her father, but he holds her tighter and won’t let her no matter how she fights and pleads.

“Hang on,” he tells her gently. “What eyes, Lyaella? Where?”

“In— in— in— in the cave, and in the wardrobe, and they were— they was— they—” she feels so angry then because she can’t remember, and even the things she can, she can’t figure out how to say it. She just knows she’s scared, and her body won’t stop shivering, and she can’t stop crying.

“The wardrobe?” Gendry asks. He looks at it. “Sansa, the door _is_ open…”

Sansa freezes. “You don’t think someone is in there? I thought it was closed when we put her down for bed…should we call for Red Fly?”

“No, I don’t think so. You should see how crammed Arya has it…nobody could fit in there. Just open it and let’s have a look to see what the princess is frightened of.”

Lyaella is glad Gendry doesn’t carry _her_ to the wardrobe. She doesn’t want to be near those eyes, not ever, not ever. She doesn’t want to look, but she catches herself doing it anyway. Sansa opens the door all the way and then peers in. Gendry does, too. They are quiet for a little bit.

“I don’t see anything,” Gendry finally says. He pats Lyaella’s back. “There’s nothing there, see? So let’s take a deep breath and calm down.”

She looks. Her tear-blurred eyes find the place she saw the glowy eyes before, and at first, she doesn’t see anything. But then Sansa moves the hanging clothes in the wardrobe to check behind them, and Lyaella sees a flash of them again, white and terrible. She jumps and tries to climb over Gendry’s shoulder to hide behind his back, but he tightens his grip on her again.

“What?!”

“There’s eyes!” she insists. She buries her face into his neck. “White eyes and they glow! There’s eyes, I want to go home, I want to go _home_!”

She hears Gendry and Sansa talking more as she weeps. And then she hears Sansa make an _ah-ha!_ sound.

“I think _this_ is what she means…Lyaella, are these the eyes?”

Lyaella’s afraid as she twists and looks towards the wardrobe. She starts to say _no!_ at first, because Sansa is holding up a cloak, and how can a cloak be eyes? But then she sees the flash again. It’s two giant white buttons at the collar of the cloak, so shiny they send light off them like mirrors do. Sansa turns them so they reflect light, and Lyaella feels a little silly, but not much better. Because even if those eyes are just buttons, she saw the eyes in her dreams. She saw it. And she saw Aemon— she saw Brother—

She begins wailing again. She can’t even hear what Gendry and Sansa are saying over the sound of it, and her tummy aches and her lungs burn. She cries for so long in Gendry’s arms, and then she hears heavy footsteps— new footsteps— and a soft hand settles on her back.

“Come here, sweet girl,” Davos murmurs, and Lyaella turns and throws herself into his arms desperately. Davos always listens to her and Davos always makes everything better. She’s so glad to see him that she just cries harder.

“Light a fire,” he tells Sansa and Gendry. He rocks her in his arms, and Lyaella’s eyes close and her crying gets less loud and less painful. “Do you want to talk about your dream or just sit in front of the fire?”

She feels warmth fill her at the thought of the flames. “The fire. I want the fire, Davo. And my daddy…”

“I know. You’ll see him soon, I promise. But we can’t take you like this to Mother and Father. They’re working so hard to get your brother here.”

Lyaella understands. She sits up in Davos’s arms and looks at him. She wipes at her tears. “‘Cause they’ll worry about me.”

“Right. They’ll put so much energy towards making you feel better because they love you so much, and they’ll do anything for you. But right now, they really need to focus on Aemon.”

 _I need Aemon,_ she thinks then, her heart aching with love-missing. _I need my brother to be here and be okay. Not to be pieces. I need his heart in his chest…_

She gets even more upset. And she can’t even explain to Davos why, and that only makes her feel worse. She cries until she just can’t cry anymore— until she’s too weak and tired and her stomach aches too much— and then Davos holds her in his lap in front of the fire and holds a mug of warm milk up for her to sip at. The warmth and the sweetness of it calms her so much, and the feeling of Davos’s heart beating behind her and the crackling of the flames help, too. Once she’s not so upset, she can think again.

“My mamma…?”

“She’s doing very, very well,” Davos promises her. “You’ve got a strong mother.”

“I know,” Lyaella says. Her mamma can fix anything, can do anything…she’s the most wonderful person in the world. “But Aemon’s not coming now? ‘Cause Daddy said— my _fawder_ said—”

“No, it’s going to be a while yet we think,” he assures her. “Jon will send for you as he promised. Your father is a man of his word.”

“Yes,” she says again. Her mouth starts to smile. She thinks maybe her dreams were tricking her then because Mother and Father would never let those things happen. They would never let her get eaten up. They would never let Aemon get exploded. They wouldn’t.

She drinks the rest of her warm milk, and once it’s gone, she leans her head back against Davos’s chest and watches the flames. They’re the most beautiful thing in the world, so pretty that Lyaella never wants to look away from them. She loves everything about it. She loves the warmth, the dancing, the liquid gold, the copper sparkles, the soft, soft blue. The light.

“Light is so good,” she tells Davos.

“Oh?”

“It’s like…it’s like…” she struggles to put it into words. She feels it, though. “It’s like big love.” Like daddy holding her in his arms as she falls asleep or mamma washing her hair in the bath. Like Aemon wrapping her tight in his furs and covering her ears. It’s bright and warm.

“The sound is relaxing,” Davos agrees, but there’s so much more to fire than that. It’s beautiful and warm, and if you stare at it long enough, you get to go new places.

Like now. She watches the flames and finds the shapes in them, and she watches those shapes happily until she starts to fall into them. She’s smiling as she looks around a garden. It’s where she always is after she goes into the flames, and she loves it here. She loves the roses, the shade of the canopy, the twisted tree with tons of scars on its trunk. She walks around in the starlight and sniffs each rose, carefully picking a few to take back for Mamma. She pricks her finger on the thorns, but she doesn’t feel any pain. Pain doesn’t exist here, and when she looks at the bead of blood on her forefinger, it sparkles like a ruby in the moonlight.

She carries the flowers with her towards the bench. She beams when she sees who she’s looking for. He’s familiar and comforting; as soon as her eyes land on him, she stops fearing her nightmares entirely.

“Lyaella,” he smiles. He’s so happy to see her. Lyaella knows. He always is. “Come, child.”

She carefully lays her mother’s roses on the ground and bounces over towards the bench. The man’s long silver hair flops into his eyes as he leans forward and lifts her up. Lyaella snuggles up to his heart as he sets her in his lap. He hugs her tight.

“It was frightening this time, wasn’t it?” he asks her.

“Yes. I was eaten up by so many mouths and teeths, and then Brother…he exploded, and the Septon…he…” she can’t finish. It was so bad and so horrible.

“I know. But it wasn’t real. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, ‘cause my mamma’s not gonna let me get eaten up or let Aemon get blowned up.”

“Certainly not,” he agrees. “The things you see are not unlike the things your parents see: there’s truth to be found, but never in the picture in front of you.”

She doesn’t know what that means, but he doesn’t sound worried at all, so Lyaella isn’t, either.

“You should be wary of the mouths of the masses, the eyes of the enemy, the horn from the sea. You should fear the Septon’s interference in matters of the heart. But no one will bite you, and no one will dismember your brother. I wouldn’t let that happen any sooner than Daenerys or Aegon would.”

That’s a true promise. Because he _is_ light.

“It’s scary when it happens, in the dark, in the night,” she admits. “I had an _axdent_ ‘cause I was so scared…I don’t want to see it.”

“I know. But the truth comes to you, and in the truth, there are often warnings. They’re important. I can’t stop them. They are yours. Your head belongs to you.”

That confuses her. “You can do anything. ‘Cause you’re fire. And if it’s my head…if it’s mine…I just say _no thank you_ to dreaming.”

He kisses her hair. He’s smiling: she can feel it. “You’re fire, too.”

“Then I can make them stop?”

“You can learn to control them. You can mold the tone of them. You were afraid when you went to sleep, weren’t you?”

She nods. She thinks about the eyes in the wardrobe, and then she thinks about how bad her heart hurt. “And sad. And missing my family.”

He taps her forehead. “You’ll learn to make them different. You’ll learn how to take what information you need from them and disregard the rest. And like everything else you attempt, you’ll learn quickly.”

She thinks hard about that. “My mamma and daddy will teach me?”

“No. You’ll teach yourself. And one day, you’ll be so good at it you’ll be able to visit the people you love in your dreams— in their dreams. You’ll never have to be alone, not even when you sleep. If we stopped your dreams now, you’d never learn that. And that skill is important. It will teach you other things, too.”

She thinks about how nice that would be. To go see her mamma or daddy in her dreams when she’s missing them. She’d like that so much.

“And I talk to Rhae like that,” she remembers. “You showed me before. Remember? Remember when I was here, and—and you showed me— I sawed— I saw Rhae and Aemon…and Rhae talked with her hands sometimes…but other times she talk to me in my head.”

“Excellent memory,” he praises. “Yes. That skill builds from other skills, and it’s a very important one. Your parents are learning right now. Did you know that?”

Lyaella’s heart grows bigger in her chest. She smiles.

“No! I didn’t know! I did not know! They’re so clever, my mamma and my daddy, they are!” She’s so, so proud. She wishes she could tell them.

“You’ll have all the skills and tools you need to keep things bright and safe. It won’t be without its challenges, but you’re the one who was promised, and that promise is as safe as it ever was. I _am_ sorry for how frightened you were, though. Soon it won’t be like that anymore. Now, let me show you something nice, something real. Something more powerful than those scary images.”

She nods. She can think about those nice things as she goes back to sleep, and then maybe she won’t be scared again.

“I want to see my brother and my sister,” Lyaella requests.

He’s smiling. “I knew you would.”

They appear right there in front of them, along with herself. Lyaella is older— a young lady and not a girl. She’s wearing a dress that looks like one her mother would wear, and her curly hair bounces loosely down her back, each silver wave glowing softly in the moonlight. It’s very long, like she has never lost a battle. She hopes she hasn’t.

She knows she’s very beautiful, but what’s even better is that she looks happy. She’s smiling so big. Probably because Aemon and Rhae are at her side, and that’s the way it should be. They are meant to be together. They even look right together: Rhae is beautiful, too, with her shiny black hair and deep amethyst eyes, and Brother is so very handsome. He’s taller than both Lyaella and Rhae, and his hair is dark as night and his eyes are vivid moonblooms. When his face is quiet, he seems powerful and fierce, even a bit scary…but when he smiles, he glows like embers.

She gets to see so much. She sees the three of them flying on their dragons to a world of beautiful ruins, their hair whipping in the sunlit breeze. She sees the three of them on the Dragonstone shore laughing together in the damp sand. She sees them laughing with Mother and Father. She sees her and Rhae curled up together in the solar, reading books until the sun goes down with mugs of hot spiced milk. She sees Mamma smiling as she threads beautiful moonblooms and frostfires into Lyaella’s silver hair while Rhae sews tiny little pieces of violet and red glass into the skirts of her white dress; when the light from the ditchfire hits it, she glows like a walking flame. She sees Aemon sneaking into her bedchambers one night when she’s upset and weeping. He’s not supposed to be there anymore, but he doesn’t care, and Lyaella doesn’t, either. Nothing can keep them apart— and many things have tried. He hugs her tight and whispers words so sweet she feels each one in her heart, and then he holds her and dances with her until she’s smiling and laughing again, until everything in the world seems easy and right— just as it’d been when they were small. Because when the night is dark and full of terrors, she and he are each other’s warmth.

She misses that feeling of _easy and right_ once it slips away. R’hllor hugs her, says _that’s enough for now,_ and then she’s back in Davos’s arms in front of the fire. Back home, and back without Aemon and his _easyright_ hugs. She wants to go back into the flames: she shifts forward off Davos’s lap and stares intently into the fire, but no matter how long she stares, R’hllor doesn’t take her back. She feels lonely, and she reaches forward to try and reach in there herself, thinking maybe she can tap R’hllor’s shoulder or grasp his hand. She reaches through the bright flames, and her fingertips touch the beautiful copper sparkles at the bottom of the fireplace—

Davos yells so loudly and snatches her up so quickly that it frightens her. His grip is so tight it hurts her belly, and Lyaella begins to cry.

“Lyaella! You can’t do that! Let me see, oh—” he says a very naughty word — “Gendry, get Aethel—”

“Aethel?! What?!” Gendry yells from the other room. “What’s happened?”

 _Yes,_ Lyaella thinks, _call Aethel_ , _’cause my belly hurts._

But Davos isn’t looking at her belly. He’s studying her fingers, her hand, her forearm. He relaxes.

“Nevermind,” he calls. When Gendry and Sansa hurry back into the room, he holds her hand up. “She stuck her whole arm into the fire.”

“Why the hell did she do that?!” Gendry demands.

“I don’t know, but I suppose that answers one question. Jon always wondered…but of course no one was ever going to test it…Lyaella, did that hurt at all?”

“It hurt when you grab my belly,” she tells him tearfully. Her arm just feels like her arm, but her belly and her ribs hurt where he yanked her up.

“Oh, I’m sorry, sweet girl,” he says at once. He looks very upset. “Is it okay to check?”

Lyaella nods. She lifts her sleeping shift and looks down at her own belly. Davos frowns.

“It’s a bit red, isn’t it? Let’s get a cool cloth. I’m sorry, Lyaella. I was so worried about the fire.”

“Fire is good. Fire doesn’t hurt me,” she tells him. She pats his arm. “I’m not mad at you, Davo.”

“I’ll know that fire is good from now on,” he promises. 

Davos holds a cool cloth to her ribs, and soon, it feels much better. Sansa changes her into a dry sleeping shift, and then she goes to get her family book, and that makes her feel better than _better_ — she feels happy. Things just keep getting sunnier…after only a little bit of reading, Grey Worm arrives and tells her that Mamma is asking for her. That makes her forget everything else in the world but Mamma. She gathers the paper flowers she made for her mother and her blanket, and then she runs from Arya’s chambers without pausing to let Sansa wrangle her into shoes. Gendry follows after her, but he doesn’t tell her not to run, which is good because Lyaella is sure her feet couldn’t walk even if she asked them to.

She’s expecting to see Mother in the bathtub, but she’s not. She’s standing at the door of their chambers waiting for Lyaella. Her face is a little shiny with sweat, and her hair is tangly and damp, but she smiles at Lyaella. It makes her face glow like embers, too— just like Aemon.

“Mamma, I _miss_ you!” Lyaella cries. She hugs her mother’s legs tightly. She smells different— like some medicines or some salves or something— but she feels the same. She pets Lyaella’s hair and pats her back, and then she tells her to come back in the bedchambers with her, and Lyaella hops along after her happily. She’d go anywhere in the world for her mamma. Anywhere.

Mother and Father’s bedchambers are the most different. A thick coverlet Lyaella has never seen before is atop their bed, and there’s a stool for birthing, and lots of silver bowls of water and tubes of tinctures and salves. But Mamma’s belly is still big, and there’s no baby anywhere, so no birthing has happened yet. Daddy pulls Lyaella up onto the bed with them and hugs her tight, and Lyaella feels so happy. All her breaths are sighs.

“I needed you, Daddy, when my dreams were so dark,” she tells him. She hugs him tighter. She never wants to let go. “I can stay here with you now?”

Nothing in the world makes her feel so safe like Daddy’s arms, not even R’hllor’s. She snuggles close to his heart and smiles at the sound of it. He kisses her head, and the tickling of his beard against her scalp makes her laugh.

“For a little while. We missed you so much, Ly,” he tells her.

“That’s all they’ve talked about,” Arya teases from her seat beside the bed.

She missed them even more. But it’s rude to argue with your parents so she doesn’t say that. She leans over and touches Mamma’s belly gently to say hello to Aemon, but it doesn’t feel right. She yanks her hand away at once, and then, after a reassuring nod from Father, she reaches back carefully and touches it again. It feels hard— very hard. She looks up at Mother; she’s got her eyes shut, and she’s holding so tight to one of Daddy’s hands that her fingers are white. Lyaella doesn’t know what to do, so she hugs Mamma and kisses her. Mamma hugs her back very tight. Lyaella begs R’hllor in her head to make it hurt less, over and over again, and finally, Mamma relaxes. She snuggles Lyaella to her side and kisses her.

“You told Daddy your dreams were dark?” she’s worried. But Lyaella thinks right now all the worry in the room should be for her.

“It’s okay. I saw the fire and it made it sunshiny again. Mamma, does it hurt a lot?”

“It’s not so bad,” Mamma says. She sets her finger beneath Lyaella’s chin and tips her face up gently. Lyaella studies her mother’s face, happy to see her eyebrows, her nose, her mouth…everything. She just loves her beautiful mother, and the world isn’t right when she can’t see her.

“I love you,” she tells Mother. She squeezes her tight. “I wanna be with you forever.”

Mother smiles and kisses her again. She looks at Daddy afterwards.

“I’m not sure how we made somebody so delightful and so sweet.”

Daddy smoothes Lyaella’s curls. “I don’t know, but it’s the best thing we ever did.”

It’s silly because he doesn’t say _I love you_ , but it sounds like _I love you_ anyway. Lyaella loves when he does that. It’s like word magic. Daddy can make lots of words be _I love you._ Like _nice work!_ or _what’s wrong?_ or _don’t worry, I will always protect you._ And when he sings, it’s _I love you_ the whole song.

She wants to help mamma more than anything, and she does. She helps her for a long time. She strokes her face with a cool cloth, she holds her cup of water up for her to sip, she plays her harp and sings to her. She’s afraid Mamma will make her leave when she decides to move back to the bath, but she doesn’t. She lets Lyaella sit right in the water with her, and Lyaella cuddles with her and tells her stories from all the books she’s read, and some from her mind, and others from the fire. Mamma starts to hurt longer and worser…Lyaella looks at Aethel, but Aethel doesn’t look worried. She just brings Mamma more tea to sip, and she rubs a very green-smelling ointment on her wet belly. Arya combs Mamma’s hair and braids it gently, but her hands shake as she does. And Daddy is just so worried. He asks Aethel questions a lot, and he grimaces whenever Mamma’s in pain, and he doesn’t look like himself. Lyaella decides he needs to be helped as well, so she cuddles him and pets his hair whenever she can, and she tries to do word magic, too. She tells him he’s the best father in the world, and it’s true like fire and R’hllor. But what she really means is _I love you._

Mamma is worried, too, but it’s not about herself. She reaches beneath the water and touches Lyaella’s rib gently.

“What happened here, sweetling?” she asks. She sounds very upset. 

Lyaella looks down at her own side. It takes her a minute to remember.

“Oh, it was just an _axdent,_ ” she explains. “I touch the fire and Davo was scared and he grab me.” She pokes her bruise. “It doesn’t hurt now.”

“Oh,” Mamma frowns, and then she and Daddy look at each other. “You touched the fire?”

“Yes. I wanted to see Aemon.”

Daddy lifts Lyaella’s hands and studies them, but there’s nothing to see but boring fingers.

“You don’t have to touch the fire for that. He’s going to be here very soon now,” Mother promises.

Lyaella is glad for that, but she’s not glad for how Mamma is hurting. It scares her, and she begs R’hllor to make it go away, but it only seems to get worse. She strokes Mamma’s wet hair and hugs her and whispers sweet things like Mamma always does for her when she’s scared…but it doesn’t make it better, and that makes Lyaella begin to cry. Seeing Mother in pain is scarier than anything in the world, and suddenly, all she can think about is _bed of blood, bed of blood._ All the women who died in their bed of blood. What would it be like to live without Mother? She can’t imagine it. Even trying makes her feel so sick, and it makes her shake—

Mother hugs her again. She must know the scary things Lyaella is thinking.

“Lyaella, could you do something for me?” she asks.

“I will do anything, Mamma, anything,” Lyaella promises.

“I’ve just realized that I never picked out a blanket for Aemon. We’ll need one to wrap him in once he’s clean and dry. Could you go and pick one for me, please? You’re the blanket expert, and I really need your help right now.” 

She would run around Flea Bottom four times without stopping once if Mother asked her to. Picking a blanket is easy work.

“Yes, Mamma,” she says at once. “I’ll pick the softest, most best one...” she trails off as Mamma curls into herself with pain. Her fear grows. “Will you be better when I come back?” She wants that more than anything. She just wants Mother to look like Mother again.

“I think I’ll be grand,” Mamma tells her, but her voice sounds wrong.

Her Arya must see how scared she is because she offers to go with Lyaella, and Lyaella is glad for it. Arya pulls her from the bath, dries her, and dresses her. She hides her face in Arya’s neck as she carries her towards the room on the other side of Mother and Father’s, the tiny room with the baby cradle and all the other baby things. Arya opens one of the chests and scoops out all the baby blankets; she and Arya sit on the floor in a massive pile of them and begin searching through it.

“Are you doing okay?” Arya asks her. “Are you nervous?”

“Mother’s hurting.” So no, she’s not okay.

“Yes, but it’s going well. I promise it is. Hurting is normal. Your mother’s been snacking and laughing and resting; she hasn’t been in misery this whole time.”

“Lots of women die in their bed of blood.”

“That’s…a disturbingly poetic way to phrase that worry. Your mother’s not going to die. Trust me.”

She does trust her Arya, but she also trusts her own eyes, and Mother didn’t look or sound well at all. She doesn’t want to think about it. Arya must know that, too, because she changes what they’re talking about.

“What about this one?” Arya asks. She lifts a blue blanket. Lyaella shakes her head. She lifts a green one. “This one?”

“No. I like this one.” She cradles a very soft grey one in her arms. Arya reaches over and touches it, and then she smiles.

“Yes, that’s the one,” she agrees. “Okay, now we’ve got to fold every single one of these blankets back and put them back where they belong.”

Lyaella starts to whine because that’s going to take _such_ a long time, but then she stops. She doesn’t want to leave Aemon’s room all messed up. That’s not a good welcome.

“Let’s fold them in rainbow order,” Arya suggests. “What color comes first?”

“Red!” Lyaella says at once. “Then orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.”

“I’m glad I have you. I can never remember.”

Lyaella thinks maybe Arya is just trying to keep her busy, but she doesn’t care. Talking with Arya, folding the soft blankets, and stacking them in pretty rainbow order makes her feel calm again, and soon she forgets to be scared at all.

II.

Dany doesn’t remember it hurting this badly last time— but last time, she was already half-delirious with blood loss by this point.

It’s discomfort that won’t allow her to sit still. She writhes and rocks in the bath, and then she climbs out and paces to the window, to her bedchambers, to the solar…she ends up doubled over in front of the sofa, her hands gripping the back as pain more demanding than any that came before it twists inside her. Jon’s hand settles on her back, but she can hardly feel it: the pain is so great that it makes everything outside of it feel hazy and distant, like some long-ago dream…

When it ebbs temporarily, she takes Jon’s offered hand and weaves unsteadily towards the bath. She doesn’t make it: she stops just outside the warm copper tub and reaches for Jon, seeking something solid to hold onto. She loops her arms around his neck and tries her hardest to breathe evenly as her womb constricts like the grip of a fierce fist, but her breaths come shallowly and quickly as nausea begins to climb up her throat. She fights it as best she can so she won’t get sick— she tries to match her breathing to Jon’s, she shifts her weight from foot to foot and sways with the clenching of her womb, but nothing helps. For the first time, she starts to feel genuine panic.

“Do you want to get back in the bath?” Jon asks her.

“No—not yet—” She sounds wild, her words frantic and jagged. Her voice is so breathless it’s nearly a pant, and her agony is restless. She takes shaky, fidgety steps over to the bathing chamber window once her womb has unclenched. Jon trails behind her, as reliable as her own shadow, but infinitely more attentive. There’s just nothing much he can do for her: it’s her and Aemon now, and her body, and she can hardly focus on anything else. The last thing she truly saw was her little daughter; once she left, and the intensity of her labor pains mounted, the world narrowed. And there’s nothing she can do for that narrowing. She hears Arya’s voice drift towards them as she presses her forehead to the cool glass and groans— she’s asking if they want Lyaella back now— but she can’t get those words to order right in her brain long enough for her to answer. They’re there, but their meaning feels scrambled, and her own response is somewhere far across the sea of her mind, racked and tossed by the waves of her pain. She only knows that she can’t focus on anything but this now, not even her sweet Lyaella: it’s simply not possible.

“No,” Jon answers for her. “Take her to Sansa and Gendry, but have them keep her close by.”

Dany senses that he’s frightened, and she hopes Arya will come back to them, even if only for Jon’s benefit. Everything’s been going so well…but Dany had always thought that, if things were to go bad, it would be at this point. She’s had nightmares of their son coming feet first, tangled and strangled by the umbilical cord, or trying to come sideways and breaking his own neck and ripping her open—

Her panic mounts, tangled with a sense of doom Dany can’t make sense of. _Everything is going well. Don’t think about that. Don’t think about that,_ she scolds herself. Aethel calls those _unproductive thoughts,_ and Dany thinks that’s a bit unfair: they _are_ productive, just not at what they want. They’re very productive at getting her to panic.

As soon as she can move stably again, she paces over to Aethel, seeking repeated reassurances. She gets them. Aethel examines her again, coaxes her into drinking more of her cool tea, and then she tells her everything is still going perfectly. _Do what feels best and breathe._ Dany’s not sure she has a choice in either matter. Her body is doing both anyway.

When her pained restlessness finally ceases, it’s sudden and complete. She goes from frantically pacing (as she’s been doing for hours) to knowing, without any doubts, that as soon as she stops, she won’t move again until Aemon is pulled from her body. As the urge to push finally overtakes her, it’s brutal and demanding. She holds tightly to Jon and bears down. Her teeth grit together fiercely, and her pulse pounds away behind her eyes. She’s asked again if she’s ready to get back into the water, but she can’t do anything right then but hold onto Jon and push. Those are the only two things in the world she can do. She pushes with the next few contractions, overcome with fear and emotion and wanting Jon most of all. She thanks R’hllor that he’s here— thanks all seven of the Faith’s gods— thanks the Old Gods and the Drowned God and the Many-Faced God of Death and the Great Stallion and the Great Shepherd and the gods of old Valyria, every one— she realizes she might be chanting her breathless gratitudes aloud as she bears down, but she doesn’t care. There’s nobody in that room she wouldn’t bare everything to. And that’s a blessing, too.

She doesn’t know when Arya returns; she just knows she feels her hand stroking her hair suddenly, and she doesn’t question it. She reaches for the bath then, and both Jon and Arya help her step back into the warm water. She delights in the momentary pleasure she feels at the heat of it, but it ebbs as her body twists and tightens once more. She draws her knees up and brings her torso forward, squeezing her muscles as she does; the pressure that’s building deep in her pelvis echoes down to her legs. She’s not sure how many contractions she pushes through: they all blur as one. When the pressure intensifies, she reaches a trembling hand down between her legs, feeling and searching…she has to push her fingers inside herself to feel his head, but she feels it. She touches his slick hair, overcome with some emotion that has her trembling so hard the water sloshes, an emotion so deep-rooted and intense that she’s not even sure what to name it. Love? Pride? Relief? Strength? _There’s no going back now,_ she thinks, and the thought loops in her mind, wrapping and dancing around any other thought that comes to be. _There’s no going back now. There’s no going back. There’s only forward._

It’s the truest thing she’s ever known. She’ll never go back. She’ll never be alone again. She’s built the one thing for herself she never had, the one thing she wanted more than anything else since she was old enough to want for anything at all: a family. And oh, she feels strong then. It rushes through her, tangled with pride and love and hope. _We built it all,_ she thinks, and she cranes her head back and looks up at Jon from where he’s sitting behind her. His smile trembles— he’s already crying. And she doesn’t know how he does what he does next— how he’s figured out how to weave their minds together separate from the fire— but she can feel his mind twining here with hers, soft and strong, burning red and the smoothest, deepest grey. It overcomes her. _We built everything, Jon. We took this destroyed world and our own barren hearts and we did this— all of this—_

You’re _doing_ this, he thinks, and she can _feel_ his wonder, his reverence. It fills his entire chest. It takes her aback for a small moment; she never imagined someone would ever feel so much love for her… _could_ ever feel so much love for her. She’s always been the one swallowed whole by the feeling, but it consumes him, too, heart and mind and soul. You _are, Dany. And this is more important than anything…_

That may be true, but she’s not doing it alone. Dampness cools against her cheeks, but her tears are not from the intensity of her discomfort: it’s from the closeness she feels with Jon, this level of intimacy so much deeper than any they’ve ever had before. Because he’s not just lounging in the firelight with her and lazing in passing memories; he’s with her as she’s bringing their son into this world— bringing him to them— and she knows he’s feeling what she feels, and he’s not backing away from it. If anything, he’s leaning in. She can feel the essence of him blending and sinking into her, and she grasps onto it tightly. She’s not scared at all anymore— not even a little bit, and not about anything. Because whatever happens to her now, it’s not happening to her alone. If she dies, it’s here with him. If she lives, it’s here with him. Whatever pain she feels, they’ll half it. And their joy…oh, their joy they’ll double.

He reaches beneath the water at the same moment she does. Their fingers twine and twist, and together, they touch their son’s head. Dany can’t hear anything outside of herself any longer: it’s simply the sprinting of her pulse, her and Jon’s shared thoughts, and her own sounds. Jon presses his lips against the crown of her head and kisses and murmurs to her as she pushes with each contraction. Her chin digs into her chest from the force of each push, and it’s white behind her eyes. _Bright and light, bright and light,_ she thinks, the thought weaving through her mind like a mantra. Like a silly rhyme their daughter would sing while skipping alongside them, her hand sunk in theirs. They feel Aemon’s hair against their fingers— and then he inches back up and away from them— and then the crown of his head graces their fingertips again—only to recede once more. _Like the tide,_ Dany thinks, or Jon thinks, or they both think. _But the tide eventually rises. Always._

Her groans turn to keens as burning pain builds and erupts between her legs. The stinging and searing is so intense that it takes her breath away, and she feels Jon flinch and gasp behind her. His embrace tightens protectively moments after, and his mouth presses to her cheek, his lips caressing her with each murmured word. She focuses on those words and those words only: whatever Aethel says she only processes because Jon processes it; she couldn’t be sure of any specific thing that’s been uttered by any mouth but Jon’s, but she gets the gist of what she’s saying, anyway. She didn’t need to be told it, though. She stops pushing on her own, sensing that she must be careful now, and slow, and patient. _Bright and light, bright and light._ She doesn’t realize how exhausted she is until she sinks back against Jon. She can’t hear anything now, not even him: her ears are packed with the drumming of her frantic heart. The pressure weighing heavily on her lower half is immense and horrific; her legs prickle and numb, and soon the fierce fire surrounding the crown of Aemon’s head turns to complete numbness. She could easily panic in the space of this brief pause, but she doesn’t. Instead, she relaxes into Jon completely, and she turns her face and presses it against the crook of his neck. The scent of him is calming, and she stays there in that soothing darkness as her womb tightens and works for her. They both think in quick, fleeting thoughts, so overwhelmed and overcome that their communication is largely through intense bursts of shared emotion and little else. Jon tightens his arms around her and rocks her gently; her breaths turn to short, shallow pants, and she feels warmth along her cheek where he caresses his nose against her skin.

She doesn’t know where the knowledge comes from— if it’s something Aethel’s said, or something she just knows, or something Jon’s theorized— but soon, the mantra _one more, one more, one more!_ starts looping through her brain, overtaking _bright and light_. She expects to feel a burst of renewed energy, but she doesn’t. And the reason is there in both her and Jon’s minds. _Lyaella_ , he thinks, and she nods frantically. _I promised her_. _I gave her my word._ And his word he’ll keep. Dany opens her eyes again and reaches desperately for Arya’s hand. The sight of the world around her rather than the dark-bright world within her is a bit disorientating: she resists the urge to slam her eyelids shut again. She’ll need to get used the light so she can see her son without hindrance.

“Ly,” she begs. “Lyaella. Ask her…tell her—she can come if she wants.”

Arya sees her desperation. She runs from the bathing chambers so quickly she slips on the wet floor and tilts forward; she barely manages to catch herself on the doorframe before hurrying out into the corridor. Dany wants to wait for her, but she knows better than to fight her own body. Her womb contracts so strongly that she can see her belly rise; Jon’s hands plunge beneath the water right as she bears down with it. The pressure crests, and then she feels a burst as Aemon’s head slips from her, followed instantly by utter, profound _relief._ She cries out— half in relief, half in joy— and the force of that cry is all she needs to guide Aemon’s shoulders from her. As he enters the world, she feels both the sensation of him sliding from her body and the weight of him as he rests in Jon’s hands. What one of them feels, they both do.

She was right: their happiness is magnified. It’s too much: she begins weeping, entirely bowled-over by the ferocity of both Jon’s joy and her own. It’s too extreme for one person to feel. That joy only grows as she hears a sudden splash; Arya drops Lyaella down into the bathtub with them, and as soon as Lyaella is kneeling in the water at Jon and Dany’s side, Jon lifts Aemon up from the dark, blood-clouded water between Dany’s legs. His first breath is in a loud, sputtering cry; Lyaella lets out a joyful exclamation at the same moment, and soon, she’s as overcome as Jon and Dany are. She trembles at their sides, her soft grey eyes wide and filled with wonder, her face radiant with a sun of a smile.

Jon carefully lifts Aemon— one hand cupping the back of his heavy head, the other cradling his bottom— and he holds him up for Lyaella to see properly. She bursts into tears with no hesitation. Arya leans over the edge of the tub and gathers her into her arms, indifferent to the bloody water soaking her sleeves. Dany’s still in shock: everything sounds far away, and her pulse is still echoing in her ears. She hears Arya ask Lyaella what’s wrong, and she hears Lyaella say, _nothing, Awa, I happy, I’m so happy…_

 _So am I,_ she and Jon think. She can feel his mind ebbing and separating from hers, but she doesn’t lament it: she can read his bliss on his face as easily as she could hear it in his thoughts. He kisses their son’s cheek and strokes his dark, matted hair, his fingers trembling and reverent. Dany’s heart is lodged in her throat as she carefully takes Aemon from Jon’s offering hands. Her baby is heavy and healthy, his wailing so loud Dany’s certain it’ll be heard as far as Flea Bottom. The thought fills her with a deep pride that tangles so beautifully with her joy. She brings Aemon to her heart and hides her face against his bloody hair. The feeling of his little chest rising and falling with each burst of air from each wail is comforting, but not as comforting as the thrumming of his little heart. She kisses his hair, his little hand, his fingers, his shoulder…part of her had feared she’d never be able to love anything as much as she loves Lyaella, but she does. She does.

Jon wraps an arm around Lyaella and pulls her snugly to his side. The three of them are trembling messes, sitting in various states of undress in the cool, bloody water, but Dany has never felt more complete. Aemon shrieks as Aethel checks him thoroughly and quickly, and once she announces that he’s healthy and perfect, she settles him back on Dany’s chest. Dany cradles him to her heart, and like his sister, the sound of her heartbeat soothes and quiets him. She strokes his hair and shakes, so speechless and overwhelmed that questions confuse her. She doesn’t know where to look first: at her baby, at Jon’s tear-streaked joy, at Lyaella’s smile…

“He’s beautiful. He’s beautiful,” she hears, and she’s not sure who says it. Maybe everyone is.

She doesn’t relax until her baby moves his cheek against her breast and starts to root; she shifts him and helps him latch on, and then she sags back against Jon, exhaustion stealing over her. _He’s safe now,_ she thinks, comforted by the thrumming of his heart and the instincts that led him to her breast, the instincts that will keep him alive and healthy. _We’re safe._

She gradually calms. Lyaella pets her tangled hair sweetly, and Dany carefully moves one hand off Aemon long enough to grasp her daughter’s little hand and bring it to her lips. Her eyelids feel heavy.

“Well?” she asks Lyaella. Her throat is sore. “What do you think?”

Lyaella’s voice is bursting with love. “I think he’s amazing, Mamma…he looks like moonblooms.”

Dany laughs. His skin is slightly violet so soon after the birth, and Lyaella’s comparison swells her heart. She kisses her palm and then her wrist, but then she lets go and lets her own arm fall to rest against her belly again. Holding it up is difficult.

The world turns quiet and small. The people around her talk and move about, but Dany hardly hears them. Lyaella lays her cheek against Dany’s shoulder and touches Aemon’s little fists, his tiny elbow, the back of his head. She asks Dany and Jon question after question, her voice hushed as if they’re in the temple. She asks about the white substance coating his skin, about the umbilical cord, what it feels like as he nurses, what he might be thinking right now, if they think he was frightened or just relieved to be born. Jon kisses Dany’s hair and strokes Aemon’s as they answer her as best they can. Dany’s contractions continue on, but they’re mild now— or perhaps she’s just too overwhelmed with love to give them any mind. She lets her body work, and the afterbirth leaves her with little effort on her part. A gush of warmth follows it, and she feels Jon tense a bit from behind her. Her heart feels fast-slow.

“That’s a lot of _bud, Fawder,_ ” Lyaella says, her voice small and uneasy. Dany lifts her heavy head and looks down at the water. It’s ruby-black now, and the color deepens by the second, growing so opaque she can’t see any part of her own body beneath the water. She feels Aethel’s hands against hers immediately; she pulls Aemon from her breast, lifting him and the afterbirth from the water, and Aemon shrieks as Dany’s hands chase after him.

“It’s time to get out,” Aethel says, and though her voice is calm, Dany senses her urgency. Dany takes Arya’s offered hands, but it takes longer than it should for her to pull her upright; Dany grows dizzy every few seconds and has to tighten her hands around Arya’s desperately as she sways. Jon stands just behind her and steadies her, and that’s enough support to get her from the bath, but soon he’s wrapping her in a thick towel and half-carrying her as he ushers her down the corridor to their bedchambers. They’re there in seconds; one moment she’s stumbling along, and the next she’s lying atop the thick coverlet, Lyaella nervously asking questions in a frightened voice and Aethel hovering over her. She feels gentle pressure as something is packed between her legs, and then she tastes a familiar but intensified flavor as a small amount of some tincture is poured gently into her mouth. She lets her eyes remain shut— her fatigue too complete to fight off completely— but she keeps her mind hooked into Aethel’s orders, and she manages to hold the tincture inside her mouth until Aethel gives her the okay to swallow it. She floats there in that tired twilight, swallowing small mouthfuls of strong tinctures every few minutes, her mind on Aemon. She doesn’t want to be separated from him: she’s afraid of that. She was separated from Lyaella. She doesn’t want that again. She wants her baby here with her…she must have him here. The new emptiness within her frightens her. She fights her dizziness and weakness with all she has, and she asks Jon for their son…when she finally feels his heavy weight settle on the center of her chest, she relaxes. She focuses on his steady breaths and his strong heart as she gently strokes his little back. She may be weak, but at least he’s strong.

“Here, Mamma,” Lyaella says, and then she sets a soft blanket over Aemon and Dany, painstakingly smoothing the creases and pulling the corners tight so it lays flat and perfect. The warmth soothes both Aemon and Dany.

“Let’s try to sit you up,” Aethel says. Dany’s afraid to move or even open her eyes— she doesn’t want that wave of dizzy darkness to overtake her again— but she tries anyway. She’s relieved to find her head feels more or less steady as Jon and Arya help her move up and lean back against the pillows. She blinks and looks down at Aemon first and foremost. He’s clean and dry now, the umbilical cord cut and tied off, and as she runs her nose against his dark, downy hair, he smells as sweet as Lyaella. She looks at her daughter next: she’s pale and scared, and Dany reaches for her. She tucks her beneath her arm and holds her as she clings to her side, and then she turns to Jon and Arya. They’re visibly haunted, but Dany’s not worried anymore. There’s no sodden puddle of blood growing beneath her when she looks down, and she would be getting dizzier rather than clearer if things were getting worse. She’s died from this once before: she’d know if it was happening again. She’d have to.

Aethel perches on the edge of the mattress. She gently holds Dany’s chin and looks into her eyes, and then she presses her fingers at the pulse point in her neck and counts.

“Is she okay?” Jon begs.

“She should be fine. It’s difficult to monitor the amount of bleeding in the water, but I think we’ve got it under control now,” Aethel says.

“The amount was— it was _a lot_ ,” Lyaella frets. She says _a lot_ like it’s some true, grave measurement. “I could give you some of my blood, Mamma.”

Dany smiles at that. She leans to the side and kisses her daughter’s hair. “You can’t, Ly, but you’re sweet to offer.”

“I should ‘cause it’s really your blood, ‘cause— ‘cause it came from you,” she persists. She touches where her own belly button is hidden beneath her silks. “You gaved it to me.”

Dany kisses her again, her heart heavy with adoration.

“How do you feel, Your Grace?” Aethel asks, and if ever Dany were asked a more complicated question, she can’t recall it. She feels more things than she can name, and each are powerful. She tries to isolate her physical feelings, but the weight of her love and relief are stronger than any of it.

She tells Aethel that she’s feeling okay: a bit dizzy and tired, and soreness is beginning to throb incessantly between her legs, but she’s good. She’s alive, and that’s already a blessing in itself. She can’t find it in her to complain about the rest of it. Aethel says they’ll continue to give her the tincture every three minutes to keep any possible hemorrhaging at bay and monitor her closely, and she warns her that she’ll need to stay in bed for a bit until they can rebuild her blood and get her to a safer point, but that’s nothing short of a blessing for Dany. She _wants_ to stay in this bed with her family. She has no interest in being anywhere else, and her family doesn’t, either. Lyaella agrees to step out to change into a dry sleeping shift after ten minutes of debate with both Jon and Arya, and only when both of them agree to leave to change, too. They change in shifts; Arya puts on dry clothes first, and then she takes Lyaella with her to change her, too. Jon hardly has time to do more than murmur questions to Dany before Lyaella’s hurrying back in the room, her shift on backwards and her feet bare. Jon’s nearly as reluctant as Lyaella was as he slides from the bed and steps out to change, but at least he steps back in with his breeches and tunic on the right way.

Dany nurses Aemon again while Aethel wipes at her skin with a warm towel, but she’s already _much_ cleaner than she’d been the last time. She cradles Aemon safely to her chest as she leans forward carefully to shrug into a dry dressing gown. She pulls it closed just enough that Aemon’s body is tucked snugly against hers beneath the fabric, but she leaves her breast and his head free.

“Do you need my blanket, too?” Lyaella worries. Dany hardly realizes she’s still trembling until Lyaella rises on her knees and settles her own threadbare blanket over Dany and Aemon.

“Thank you, sweetling, but I’m okay,” Dany assures her. “You can take it back if you want. I’m not cold. I think I’m just shaking because that was such hard work.”

“I want you to keep it,” Lyaella persists, and her concern and affection are so sweet Dany feels another massive swell of love— this one for her daughter and her daughter alone. She opens her free arm for Lyaella, and she curls halfway atop Dany, her cheek resting over her other breast and her little hand settling softly upon Aemon’s back.

“His heart is strong,” she says happily. “Just like mine and yours and Daddy’s.” Dany’s throat narrows. She locks eyes with Jon; their shared smile is tender. She’s already leaning against him, but she leans over further, seeking more closeness. If she didn’t have both their children chaining her in place, she’d move to sit in the cradle of his legs and arms again— just to have him nearer.

They rest there for a while, Aemon and Lyaella dozing together atop Dany’s chest. Jon and Dany sit and share the soft silence. And they _breathe_. _We made it through it,_ Dany thinks. _We’re okay. Everything’s okay._ Jon must be thinking the same thing; when Dany looks up at him, he’s emotional again. But that could just be because he’s looking at their son.

Arya drifts between them and the rest of Rhaella’s Fortress, updating the various visitors and members of the council and guard on Dany and Aemon’s health. Dany finally grabs her hands and tugs her down onto the bed to make her stay for a bit, and she seems happy enough to curl at her side. Dany realizes then that she was waiting for an invitation to their family’s private moment, and that makes her feel her first sting of sadness. Arya’s still Arya, but the time she spent apart from them changed something. Nothing big enough to alter things much, but enough that she must feel slightly edged out of this moment on this bed. At least until Dany tugs her into it.

She shifts Aemon over into the cradle of her arm, and the three of them look at him as he sleeps, taking him in and growing accustomed to this new little person they’re sharing their lives with. He’s soft and cuddly in the grey blanket Lyaella chose for him, and his skin is already less violet than it was even ten minutes prior. When Lyaella wakes, she moves over to sit in Arya’s lap. She leans back against her, and she asks: “Do you like him so much, _Awa_?”

Arya laughs.

“No,” she answers, and right as Lyaella’s face begins to fold in an expression of supreme insult, Arya adds: “I _love_ him.”

Lyaella relaxes against Arya. She’s beaming. “Me too! Me, too, _Awa_. I love him. ‘Cause look at his little, tiny, teeny, itty fingers…” her voice lowers to a whisper, and her touch ghosts against Aemon’s curled fists. She looks up at Dany then. “They’re cute, Mamma.”

“I like his hair,” Dany shares. She cranes her face forward and kisses his dark, downy hair. It’s so soft; it fills her heart with so much affection it’s nearly painful, and she feels her eyes burn again. She rests her head back against the headboard, but her hand moves over to pull gently at Jon’s curls. The shade is identical.

“I like that, too! Do you, Daddy? Do you?”

Jon admits what Dany’s truly thinking, too. “I like everything about him. I think he’s perfect. Just like you.”

Lyaella’s smile turns bashful, but it’s the honest truth. For a moment, Dany feels the full weight of her heritage: genetic dragon-taming skills notwithstanding, she can’t imagine who else on this planet could possibly be good enough for these two perfect people but each other. But she knows she’s incredibly biased.

“Well _I_ like his adorable pouty mouth,” Arya says. She taps his chin gently with her knuckle. “Very dramatic. When he cries, people are definitely going to listen.”

“He’s not gonna cry,” Lyaella chimes. “‘Cause nobody will ever make him cry. But one time when I was big something made me cry. But Aemon— he take care of me and love me, and— and—and one time— one time, Mamma— Mamma, are you listening?”

Dany glances up and tears her eyes from baby Aemon. She’d been ghosting her knuckle along the side of his cheek and studying his sleeping face, her entire chest packed full with pride and adoration, but she shifts her focus and looks fully at Lyaella.

“Yes, darling, I’m listening,” she assures her, though she’s certain Lyaella is about to tell the same story about Aemon wrapping her in his cloak while they’re in the North, and she’s right. Dany listens to the same fragmented story for what must be the dozenth time. It had made an impression on her, that’s for certain.

When she’s finished, Dany says: “That was so sweet of him, wasn’t it? I’m glad your brother is sweet. Mine wasn’t much like that.”

“Rhaegar was sweet. I think R’hllor likes him most ‘cause he always looks like him when he holds me,” she says. She doesn’t give Jon and Dany time to so much as glance at each other after that comment. “When is Aemon big enough for me to hold him? I practice with my baby eggs all the time. I know he’s so special like glass, and I _never ever ever_ throw him, and I never ever drop him, Mamma, I promise so much with my _whole_ heart!”

Dany smiles at her. She reaches out and strokes her curls back from her face fondly. “You can hold him now, if you like.”

Lyaella’s eyebrows rise in surprise, and then a smile lights her face. Her joy is so precious and beautiful that both Dany and Jon reach towards her to pull her into a hug, but of course, they both can’t at once. She reaches out, too, and at first, Dany thinks she’s reaching for Aemon, but then she curls her arms up, and then extends them, and then curls them up again…

“What are you doing?” Arya asks, amused.

“Getting my arms so strong for holding baby Aemon,” Lyaella answers, serious and straight-faced. Dany _can’t_ look at Jon after that; she knows she’ll burst into laughter the moment their gazes converge.

“He is rather heavy,” Dany agrees. “Arya might have to help you hold him up.”

Arya heaves a deep sigh as if that’s some grave inconvenience. She sticks her arms out and begins to pump them, too.

“Suppose I’d better start getting my arms strong, too, then…”

Lyaella twists in Arya’s lap and looks back at her, her expression grave.

“It’s not a joke, _Awa_ ,” she tells her. “This isn’t funny games.”

Arya holds her hands out innocently. “Who is laughing? I’m not. I’m merely following your training regimen.”

“I think you’re teasing with me,” Lyaella persists.

“I am. I’m sorry. You’re just so cute, Lyaella,” Arya admits.

Lyaella holds her arms out with an air of finality this time. “I’m strong,” she declares, and Dany’s not sure whether she’s correcting Arya or letting them know she’s ready to hold her brother. Perhaps both.

Shifting forward to try and set Aemon in Lyaella’s arms makes Dany wince audibly; Jon gently scoops Aemon from her arms, and she eases back against the headboard and shifts her lower half ’til the throbbing pain lessens. By the time she’s as close to comfortable as possible, Jon is carefully settling Aemon into Lyaella’s arms. He makes sure his heavy head is nestled in the crook of her little arm, and he helps adjust her other hand to show her how to hold him securely, but then he sits back and gives her space. Dany waits to feel nervous, but she doesn’t. She does feel tears burning at the back of her throat again, though.

Lyaella’s abruptly shy once she’s holding him. She rocks him twice and then stops, growing uncertain and self-conscious.

“Rocking is bad?” she worries. “It will bother him?”

“No, I think he’d like that,” Dany assures her. “He was rocked all the time when he was inside me. Every time I walked it probably felt like being rocked.”

Lyaella sways her arms a couple more times, but it’s hesitant. She gazes down at him, genuinely awed now that he’s in her arms. Dany understands the feeling completely.

Lyaella looks up at Jon. “I can talk to him, or it will wake him up?”

Jon laughs. “You never cared about waking him up before! You used to play your harp right in front of Mother’s belly! He’ll like it, Ly. He’ll recognize your voice, too, I’m sure of it. It’ll make him feel safe.”

Lyaella wants so terribly to do this right. Her determination and eagerness are touching. Dany finds herself begging Aemon in her head not to start crying in her arms, certain that it would break little Lyaella’s heart right in two. _Just hold off your tears until you’re back with me,_ she thinks. _Then you can cry as much as you want._

It takes another round of encouragement from Dany, but Lyaella finally interacts with her brother.

“Hello,” she whispers, and then she falls into giggles. She looks up at her parents, her eyes sparkling with happy tears. “His nose moved! Like this!” she twitches her own nose.

“It’s amazing to be able to see him now, isn’t it?” Jon asks her. “Those little feet were the same ones causing all that trouble inside Mother.”

Lyaella giggles at that, too. “And his little elbows!”

“Oh, yes. We can’t forget about the elbows,” Jon agrees. “Mother certainly hasn’t.”

“I never could,” Dany agrees.

Lyaella shifts her arms slightly. Dany can tell they’re aching, but she’s unwilling to move them much more in fear of dropping her brother, and she doesn’t seem to want to ask anyone to take him away. Arya sets her arms beneath Lyaella’s to help support Aemon’s weight.

“Can I tell him my name?” Lyaella asks.

“You can tell him anything you want,” Daenerys assures her. “Or nothing at all. Or we can take him back if you’d like. You’re going to have all the time in the world to get to know him.”

“No, I’m not ready,” Lyaella answers without hesitation. She brings Aemon closer to her heart. “I want to hold him for longer.”

“All right,” Jon allows, smiling. He takes pity on Lyaella’s sudden shyness. “Lyaella, this is Aemon,” he gestures at Aemon, and Lyaella falls into giggles again, likely at his formal tone. He leans over Dany’s legs and bows forward, pressing a soft kiss to Aemon’s forehead. Dany’s vision grows hazy. “Aemon,” he says softly. “This is Lyaella. She’s your sister.”

“Hello,” Lyaella says again. “I been waiting for you and waiting. You are my best best best _fend,_ and I love you for my whole life.”

Dany blinks her burning eyes. Her tears feel hot against her cheeks, but no one in the world could think her lesser for it. Her newborn son hasn’t even been alive half a day yet, and he’s already heard words Dany spent decades waiting to hear. He’s already surrounded by more love than Dany thought possible even four years ago now. She’s as thankful for that as she is for her own life.

After that, Lyaella can’t seem to _stop_ talking. She whispers and chatters to Aemon the entire time he’s in her arms, and when Dany gently takes him back to bring him to nurse again, she talks then, too. She talks as Aethel examines and tends to Dany, and she talks as the sun rises outside the window, and she talks as they all share a tray of food. She chats at baby Aemon as he sleeps in Grey Worm’s arms, and in Davos’s, and in Sansa’s. When Aethel helps Dany to the privy for the first time since the birth, Dany can even hear her laughing and talking from halfway down the corridor, and by the time she returns and eases carefully back onto the bed, she’s _still_ talking to Aemon. Dany doesn’t know what’s more surprising: the amount of words Lyaella’s speaking, or the fact that Aemon hasn’t cried once the entire time.

Their daughter talks up until the moment she drifts to sleep, and though Dany feels guilty for it, she’s relieved when she settles down. She’s exhausted by Lyaella’s nonstop energy and enthusiasm, and though she would never admit it aloud to anyone, she’s desperate for time alone with Aemon. She can hardly process that he’s here: everything happened so fast, and she went from pushing him from her body to interacting with so many people outside of them—outside of her and her baby. She feels an instinctive need to focus on him and only him, even if only for a half-hour.

Either Aethel can read her face better than Dany expected or this is a common need of new mothers. She orders everyone to leave only a minute or so after Lyaella drifts off, without any prompting whatsoever from Dany. She pulls the heavy curtains closed over the bright morning sun, refills their glasses of water at the bedside herself, and gives Dany one last dosage of pain tincture.

“No more visitors, Your Grace,” she urges. “Rest. I’ll be back to check on you within the hour.”

Neither Jon nor Dany protest. Dany’s gratitude seeps into her words as she thanks her, and Aethel pauses at the door before she leaves.

“Thank _you_ ,” she says, and Dany’s not sure what she means by that. She waits, hoping Aethel will explain, and she does. “All I ever wanted when I was a girl was to be a maester. It was never possible for me before you. _Grand Maester_ wasn’t even something I dared to dream of, much less hope for. All the things you’re grateful for, you’ve built yourself.”

Her words lurk in Dany’s mind long after she’s left. _All the things you’re grateful for, you’ve built yourself._ It’s certainly true for her family. From her wonderful little daughter, with her bright curiosity and gentle heart, to her tiny son, sure to be as sweet as Lyaella proclaims. Labor and birth — and even death— were such small prices to pay for gifts as beloved as them.

She feels Jon hasn’t gotten to hold Aemon as much as he’d like so she turns and carefully passes him off to him. Jon receives him gently and cradles him in his strong arms like he’s made of paper-thin glass. Dany’s exhaustion quickly gets the better of her once Aemon is resting somewhere safely; she slides down bit by bit, mindful of the warm towel still packed between her legs, and then she curls against Jon and lays her cheek against his shoulder. He shifts Aemon so he’s held in one arm and wraps his other around her. For a long while, they rest together and look at their son. Dany studies every inch of him, her heart swelling more and more by the minute. She strokes his tiny knuckles, the bridge of his adorable nose, the pout of his lips, the delicate curve of his ears. She’s certain he’s the most beautiful prince to ever grace the world, and that’s a truth she’d go to war for.

Thoughts of war bring other thoughts to the forefront of her mind. Thoughts of the Faith, of their letters, of the conflicts to come. It feels like years since she’d been standing in the Sept…everything has changed so much in no time at all. But nothing in the world seems important in comparison to her newborn son, and because of that, she’s able to shut those worries off as soon as they begin.

She and Jon don’t need to talk. They’ve certainly talked with Lyaella enough these past few hours to have said everything that ever needed saying. But Jon speaks anyway, and Dany already knows what he’s going to say, but she hoards every word in her heart despite. It’s double the love.

“I’ve wanted this all my life,” he admits, his voice hushed. His soft gaze never leaves their son. He almost seems afraid to look away, as if he fears Aemon will disappear the moment he does. As if he fears he’ll suddenly find himself alone on the Wall again. But there’s no going back.

Dany kisses his shoulder. Half the pride inside her chest migrates to her lips, and it leaves her in the form of words.

“Everything you’re grateful for, you’ve built yourself.”

It’s equally true for the both of them. Because everything they’ve built, they’ve built together.

III.

The first few weeks with a newborn are always frighteningly sleep deprived, but it reaches a new level with Aemon.

Jon already hasn’t slept right for the past moonturn— not since Dany began approaching her time, so anxious for when the moment would arrive and frightened that things might go wrong again, that the storming might start, that pain might cleave his heart open for the second time when the wounds from the first had only just began to heal. That she might suffer and die again by his hand. Because of that, he’s already sleep-deprived as he embarks on the first month of Aemon’s life, and he finds himself wishing he’d took up Aethel’s multiple offers of dreamwine in the weeks preceding the birth. Because as soon as Aemon is with them, their ability to sleep evaporates.

Between Aemon’s multiple nightly feedings, Lyaella’s on-and-off nightmares, and Tyrion’s day-and-night council emergencies, they’re lucky to sleep an hour undisturbed. Especially Dany; Aemon’s appetite is a brutal, ceaseless responsibility to attend to, one that Jon tries his hardest to mitigate. He forces himself to stay awake as often as he can to sit sentry beside Dany and let her doze off as Aemon nurses, ready to reach out and take their son should her elbows slip from the pillows propping up her arms, but even doing that, her sleep is minimal. Jon’s just as poorly off on the nights Lyaella wakes them crying or yelping. It doesn’t happen nightly, but when it does, it’s horrific misery for all of them. Aemon can be brought to Dany’s breast and soothed immediately; Lyaella’s hysterics are complicated and enduring. It’s not as simple as hugging her and telling her everything’s okay. They have to get her calm enough to be able to tell them what she saw that upset her, and then they have to find some way to convince her what she saw wasn’t real (or won’t one day _be_ real), and then they have to get her warm milk and rock her in front of the fire until she stops trembling…

It can go on for hours depending on how frightening the dream was. On those nights, it usually ends up being Jon trying to soothe and care for Lyaella alone while Dany tends to Aemon, and being split from her doubles the difficulty of the task. But staying together isn’t an option because Lyaella’s cries stir Aemon every time he falls back asleep, and that just adds another crying voice to their frustrating midnight symphony. They have no choice but to keep the two apart at night, which ultimately leads to _them_ being apart most nights, and that doesn’t help them feel better, either.

As they enter Aemon’s second week of life, Lyaella wakes in hysterics three nights in a row. At the same time— or maybe somehow because of it— Aemon cries to be fed hourly each night, leaving both Jon and Dany overwhelmed and desperate. They’re not lacking loving, helpful hands: Arya and Davos try to help every night, mainly with Lyaella, and Ezhi tries walking Aemon up and down the corridor when he begins wailing to see if he’ll calm that way, but the prince and princess only want one thing, and that is their parents. The longer they go without sleep, the more overwhelmed Jon feels. Davos is quick to remind them that they weren’t even _here_ in King’s Landing at all when Lyaella was Aemon’s age, and they certainly didn’t have a three-year-old to attend to, nor a kingdom to run. _It’s natural that you’re feeling overwhelmed,_ he assures Jon. _Step back from things and give yourselves time. Things might not have been traumatic as they were the last time, but you still need time to adjust._

 _Really,_ Jon thinks each night, close to exhausted tears, _we just need time to_ sleep _._ Everything in the world would feel more manageable that way— for all of them. Little Lyaella particularly. She’s so exhausted the days following her night terrors that she falls asleep on and off throughout the day, but she never lets herself do more than doze, clearly too traumatized by her trio of traumatic nights to want to truly sleep. Her lack of sleep and lingering fear from her rough nights make her seem a different child at times, and the recent change to her everyday life doesn’t help. On her best days, she’s sweet and attentive with Aemon, understanding and patient with Dany and Jon, and content to occupy herself with books, drawings, letters, or cloud-watching as long as she needs to. She cuddles up against Dany and strokes Aemon’s soft hair as he nurses, she fetches her mother snacks or drinks, and all she requires to satisfy her need for quality time is at least an hour or so of reading or talking with Jon and Dany. She eats her supper just fine and understands completely why Daddy must be the one to cuddle her to sleep, and why she can’t sleep in their bed with Mamma and Aemon.

But on her worst days— usually the days following a nightmare— she’s whiny and petulant, liable to be set off over the tiniest of inconveniences or struggles. Something as simple as being unable to sound out a new word or fasten a button sends her into a sobbing tantrum that lasts an ungodly amount of time. Despite desperately needing sleep, she _refuses_ to nap, going so far as to throw herself onto the floor and grab the nearest piece of furniture in an attempt to keep from being picked up and dragged off to bed. Nothing Jon and Dany can give her is enough for her: if they get Aemon to settle in his cradle so they can hold her and read to her for an hour, she weeps and begs for four more. Anything they offer her to eat during the day is ‘ick’, until the middle of the night, when she’s _starving,_ likely in a ploy to get Jon or Dany to take her to the kitchens for some more time alone with them. And when they _do_ fetch her a snack, it’s impossible to get her back in her bed without more meltdowns. She’ll cling to Jon’s leg and weep and beg and plead— she’ll tell him eyes are in her wardrobe, in the ceiling, in the floors, in the walls— and then, when he cuddles her in her bed to try and make her feel safe, he ends up leaving Dany alone all night to tend to Aemon’s nonstop appetite, which means she ends up going with no sleep whatsoever.

So it’s understandable that tonight, after three consecutive bad days and terrible nights, the three of them are in horrible moods. Aemon has been nursing nearly nonstop all day long, leaving Dany frustrated and exhausted; Lord Tyrion has just left after bringing them news of the Septon trying— yet again— to turn the public against them, despite the fact that the people are almost totally on Jon and Dany’s side after the wide-spread distribution of their letters; Jon is dead on his feet after a night of soothing Lyaella after _three_ separate nightmares; and Lyaella is absolutely miserable about everything.

“You have to eat _something_ , Ly,” Dany murmurs. She continues gently patting Aemon’s back; he’s drooling a puddle onto the shoulder of her dress, his flushed, chubby cheek smushed against the emerald silk and his violet eyes gazing unfocused in Ghost’s direction. Lyaella appears similarly dazed, but hers is a daze of exhaustion. She lays with her cheek smushed to the open pages of her book, desperately fighting the heaviness of her eyelids. Eating the food piled in front of her clearly isn’t even a thought for her.

“I want to read,” Lyaella insists. She slowly straightens and hides her face in her hands as she yawns, as if they can’t see it if she can’t see them. Jon shares an unhappy look with Dany, and Lyaella says, her face still hidden: “I’m not _seepy._ ”

“You’re right: you’re _exhausted_ ,” Jon agrees. He reaches out and grabs the back of her chair. A gentle tug is all it takes to pull her out from the table enough to scoop her into his arms. She feels so light; he worries for her, a concern that erodes at his insides and makes him feel ill. “Come rest with me.”

She shakes her head at once and squirms in his arms, seeking to be set down. “I not— I’m not tired!”

“You’re falling asleep here at the table, sweetling,” Dany says gently. “Eat a bit— some figs, at least— and then we’ll go lay down.”

She twists back towards Jon, turning away from her mother. She buries her face in his neck.

“I’m _not hungy!_ I’m _not seepy! I’m not!_ ” she roars, genuine anger in her voice. Jon looks down at Lyaella in shock, but she latches her arms around his neck and refuses to look up at them. “I want to read! I want to read my book!”

“Don’t yell at Mother,” Jon scolds. Dany’s lips are pressed together tightly. She doesn’t even smile when Aemon finally gives an audible burp, she just shifts him back into the cradle of her arms and looks at their daughter, the deep bruises beneath her eyes even more noticeable in the shadowy light.

“We’re all going to sleep,” Jon decides. He stands up and tightens his grip on Lyaella when she tries to drop from his arms at that declaration. “We _all_ need it.”

“No! I don’t! I want to read! I want to read!” Lyaella cries. “Mamma! I want to _read_!”

“And you _need_ to sleep.” Dany’s not swaying on this, and Lyaella sees that clearly. She resorts to her backup plan: sobbing. It’s more effective than yelling; Jon feels doubt creep down his spine immediately, and to make the situation even more miserable, Aemon begins howling seconds after Lyaella does. He and Dany look at each other— a wailing child clutched to their hearts— and move onto _their_ backup plan, which also happens to be their last resort. After a heavy, conflicted look, Jon nods, his jaw set firmly, and Dany turns to fetch Ezhi. Lyaella sees her leaving, and despite how irritable she’d been with her moments prior, she falls into hysterics at the sight of her walking from the room.

“ _Mamma_!” she wails. She reaches out for Dany, and Jon’s heart snaps into two. “Mamma! No! Mamma, my mamma, come _back_! Come back, Mamma!”

“She’s just stepping out to fetch Ezhi—”

Lyaella’s too far gone to hear reason. Her cries only grow in intensity. She weeps and wails _my mamma!_ until Dany returns with Aemon still cuddled in her arms and Ezhi at her side. Ezhi’s carrying a mug of warm milk with dreamwine mixed in, and though Jon knows Lyaella needs to sleep (and _they_ need to sleep), he just can’t get himself to let her drink it just yet. He takes it from Ezhi and thanks her.

“We’re going to rest in the bed and read _together_ , Ly,” Jon tells her firmly. _Maybe we can get her to fall asleep that way. This our last resort,_ he thinks again. He knows, if the dreamwine works properly, that it will bring his little daughter so much peace…but if it doesn’t work properly— if it makes her night terrors worse as it once had for Jon— they’ll be a cause of further suffering. The prospect is agonizing.

“With M-Mamma and A-Aemon?” Lyaella begs.

“Yes, with Mamma and Aemon,” Jon assures her. He’s certain some of this hysteria has branched off from her uneasiness with being separated from her Mother at bedtime these past two weeks. He looks over at Daenerys. “Right, Dany?”

“Yes,” she says. Lyaella twists to look back at her, nearly causing the warm milk clutched in Jon’s left hand to slosh over the rim onto the floor. He shifts Lyaella’s weight so she’s held firmly on his right hip, and then he carefully adjusts his hold on the mug.

“ _Together_ ,” Dany repeats firmly. Lyaella sucks in a shaky breath, and then she nods tearfully.

Once they’re on the bed together, Jon and Dany switch children. Aemon’s just eaten so Jon prays he’ll rest for a while; he feels Lyaella needs some time with Dany, and he’s right. She curls up against her mother at once. Dany wraps her arm around her tightly and strokes her fingers through her curls. The soothing motion of her mother’s fingers in her hair makes Lyaella’s eyelids grow heavy…she sinks back against Dany for a moment, hovering close to sleep…and then she gives herself a little shake and sits up.

“I want to read,” Lyaella insists again. “Not sleep…just read, Mamma.”

“Why?” Dany asks gently. “You’re so tired. Why do you want to read?”

Lyaella shrugs. “I just do…I just need to…okay?”

Jon and Dany share a conflicted look. Lyaella is telling them what she ‘needs’, but Jon’s not certain what she thinks she needs is truly what’s best for her. But he’s afraid to give her the dreamwine. It won’t harm her physically in any way, but it could harm her emotionally if her dreams are _worse_ from it. And what if she stops trusting them because of it?

“Okay,” Dany finally says. “Which book would you like to read tonight?”

Lyaella rises onto her knees and clambers down from the bed. She’s so exhausted that she sways as she walks. Jon goes to follow after her automatically, so used to being her shadow, but Dany touches his arm to still him and then rises to follow after her herself.

He can hear them conversing softly from Lyaella’s bedchambers— Dany’s voice patient and calm, Lyaella’s exhausted and stubborn— and it’s a while before he can get himself to relax with them gone. He can’t let go: he feels the need to get up and join them, so used to being at Lyaella’s side.

But his son is a heavy, cuddly warmth against his chest, and his peace is contagious. Jon finds his own breathing deepening to match his son’s, and then he sinks back against the pillows and allows himself to focus solely on Aemon. They haven’t left Rhaella’s Fortress yet, except to venture out into the courtyard for a meal or two, but things have been going at a breakneck pace despite that. Life is a blur of feedings— changings— baths—and interspersed between all those never-ending things are Lyaella’s needs, which are much more complicated than Aemon’s even if they’re not as demanding. And because she’s his first baby, the one who carries his heart, his precious daughter that he loves more than his own life, he’s been determined to never let her feel neglected or replaced, not even for a moment. He admits, in the process of that, that he’s been more dotting and spoiling than he usually is. If she asks for a song, he sings her three. If she requests a visit to see Cow One, he summons Cow One to the courtyard surrounding Rhaella’s Fortress and has a temporary stable built so she can see him whenever she’d like. If she wants to play her harp, he sits and plays a captive audience for as long as her fingers strum the strings.

Due to that focus on their first child, and Aemon’s recent nonstop feedings, Jon rarely gets time with just Aemon. As Lyaella and Dany chatter and sort through her books, he decides to embrace this rare moment. He gazes down at Aemon’s feather-soft hair and gently strokes his back as he sleeps. His heart takes on a slow, heavy pace he’s come to know well: the pace of a heart drowning beneath affection. He cradles his baby close, overcome with thoughts he’s familiar with… _I’ll protect you for as long as I live. Nobody will ever hurt you…_

But it’s those same thoughts he thinks every time he kisses Lyaella’s curls, and she’s being hurt right now. Her dreams are hurting her. And he can’t do anything about it. He and Dany seek R’hllor in the flames, but the few times he’s spoken, he’s told them not to worry about Lyaella. He’s told them everything is the way it must be. Yet worrying is all Jon can do, and he can’t rest with the idea that Lyaella _must_ suffer. He won’t accept that— he can’t accept that. And R’hllor must know that.

He feels despair twine with his love. He lowers his face and hides it against the crown of Aemon’s head briefly, the pain in his chest swelling and suffocating. _I just want to protect my children,_ he thinks. It loops and repeats. _I just want to protect you and your sister. It’s what I want more than anything in the world. It’s the most important thing. I love you both so much that I think it could rip me right open. It could kill me._

Losing them would do that. He doesn’t let himself think about it often. It’s a dark, horrific thought, one that his mind shies away from the moment it enters his mind. But sometimes, when Lyaella’s reading about the Targaryen children from history who have died before their time (and there are so many of them), he feels a rush of fear greater than any he’s ever felt before. He clings to the notion that R’hllor needs Lyaella and Aemon, but if R’hllor is fine with letting Lyaella starve and exhaust herself in fear, what else will he let her endure? Jon can’t imagine what it would be like…if he lost one of them…he’s certain it would send him over into a type of madness befitting of Aerys’ grandson.

Aemon turns his head, drawing Jon’s focus back to him. He parts his lips and gives a tiny yawn, and his legs kick against his blankets for a moment before he settles once more. Jon kisses his hair and reaches down to touch his hand; his tiny fingers wrap around Jon’s thumb immediately. He holds on as he sleeps, tender and sweet. _My son,_ Jon thinks. He thinks it often, and always with a rush of joy and love that makes his eyes burn. He still sometimes can’t believe it. _I would do anything for you._

He lowers his face down again and trails his nose over Aemon’s scalp. His eyes flutter shut, and for a minute or so, he rests in a moment of quiet peace. He strokes the back of Aemon’s little hand and breathes in the baby-sweet smell of him, his soft, fine hair tickling Jon’s face. _He’s healthy,_ he reminds himself. _He’s gaining weight all the time, and I know he makes it to adulthood because I saw what he looks like when he’s a man. R’hllor showed me. He’s safe now, and he’ll stay safe. He’ll grow up, and I’ll teach him everything. I’ll teach him how to wield Longclaw, how to protect himself and his family, how to be a man of honor…I’ll be as good a father to my son as Father was to me. No— I’ll be better. I won’t ever lie to my son, and when he’s a man grown, we’ll be equals. He won’t be sent anywhere: we’ll all be here together…we’ll build the new world together…me, Dany, and our children._

But before then, he gets to be here _now_. He gets to hold his baby to his heart and cherish his soft breaths, his little features, his precious fragility. He gets to keep him safe and loved in the circle of his arms. And sooner than he thinks, he’ll get to teach him how to walk, how to talk, how to read…and as he learns, he’ll be here, safe in his parents’ arms. Just as his sister had been.

He hears Dany and Lyaella’s returning footsteps, but they stop before they reach the bed. He lifts his face to check on them, but there’s nothing to be concerned about: Dany’s standing in the doorway looking at him and Aemon, her face lit up with a soft, lovesick smile. She draws Lyaella closer to her side.

“That’s adorable, isn’t it?” she asks Lyaella. “Daddy and Brother cuddling.”

Lyaella laughs. She seems to be in a better mood with her book of choice clutched to her chest. “They’re _so_ cozy and comfy, Mamma.”

Jon opens his arm for his daughter, and she’s all smiles as she bounces across the room and joins him on the bed. She snuggles up to his side and then leans over to kiss the back of Aemon’s head. Jon nuzzles the top of her head with his cheek and she giggles, squirming happily at the tickling of his beard.

“What book did you get?” Jon asks her.

She sets the heavy book in her lap. “ _Book of Lost Books_! That’s sad, isn’t it, Father? That books could be lost.”

“Yes,” Jon agrees, but it’s for her benefit. He can’t say that thought brings him much genuine sadness. “Why this book? I expected your ‘family book’. Have you grown tired of Good Queen Alysanne?”

“No,” Lyaella answers. She eases the old book open. The spine wheezes and coughs. “I read about Daenys…she wrote all about her dreams, but then— then it got— it was— I don’t know how, but it _disappearded_ except for three pages in here, the book for lost books.”

“Ah,” Jon says. He peers at the pages with interest. He understands Lyaella’s earlier insistence now. “She wrote about her dreams? What are they like?”

“Like mine,” Lyaella tells him. She doesn’t look up from the pages, but he can hear her fear even if he can’t see her face. “They are scary and fake-true.”

Dany touches her hand gently. “Fake-true?”

“True…but in a secret way,” she explains. It doesn’t really explain much at all. “‘Cause I was eaten all up by a floor of mouths, but really, I’m not gonna be eaten.”

Jon and Dany share a look of mild alarm. “No, I should think not,” Dany agrees, working to keep her tone casual. “That sounds very frightening.”

“It was scary but— but R’hllor says— he says it’s about words. ‘Cause they can eat you all up even if they don’t eat you all up,” she says sagely.

“That’s true,” Jon allows slowly. He brings one hand over to stroke Lyaella’s hair. “Is that what you’ve been seeing the past few nights? The mouths?”

She doesn’t answer him. She bows forward over the book so that her long silver curls fall in shining curtains around her face, shielding her expression. Her fingers tremble as she turns one of the fragile, yellowed pages.

“Ly?” Dany questions softly.

“No,” Lyaella finally answers. “I see different things.”

It’s obvious she has no interest in talking about them, and though Jon desperately wants to know (how can he protect her if he doesn’t even know what he’s up against?), neither he nor Dany ask her. She reads silently, speaking up only to sound out words she’s unfamiliar with. Jon strokes Aemon’s back as he sleeps on, merging his concerned eyes with Dany’s every few minutes.

“What if _you_ did that?” Dany asks their daughter. She lifts one of her little hands from the pages and brings it to her lips, kissing the back of it gently. “Kept a book about _your_ dreams, like Daenys did. It might help to write about it, and then, if you wanted Daddy and I to know about it, you could just give us the book. That way you wouldn’t have to think about it every time someone asks you to retell it. Do you think that would help?”

Daenerys is just as desperate to find some solution as Jon is. Lyaella looks up at Dany; her silver brow furrows as she thinks.

“I can write very very nicely,” she shares, her tone thoughtful. “Auntie Sansa says my hand is _very_ neat.”

Jon smiles fondly. “Yes. You’ve been working at it very diligently.”

“I could, maybe,” she ponders. She looks up at Dany. “But I don’t have a book.”

“You’ll have one by morning. One with blank pages just for you to write on. Let’s try it, sweetling. We’ll see how it goes. And if it doesn’t help at all, we have special milk we can try next. It has dreamwine in it. It will help you sleep and keep you from dreaming.”

Lyaella looks skeptical. “I don’t think so, Mamma.”

“You don’t think what?”

“I don’t think it can take my dreams away.”

Jon isn’t so sure, either, and he knows Dany is similarly uneasy. But she feigns surprise at Lyaella’s doubt.

“Why ever not?”

“‘Cause my dreams are special,” Lyaella answers. She yawns deeply moments later, and no matter how hard she tries to stifle it, more yawns follow afterwards. Jon catches himself yawning along with her. She twists to the side to face Dany and reaches up, grasping her mother’s face with sudden urgency. “I don’t wanna go to my bed.”

That’s where she’s been every night. Jon— and sometimes Dany, depending on Aemon’s fussiness— always rests with her until she falls asleep, but then Dany and Aemon come back in here in an effort to keep Lyaella’s potential nightmares from waking Aemon, or Aemon from waking Lyaella.

Tonight, though, Lyaella is adamant.

“I want you and Aemon,” she pleads. “I want to stay here, and Daddy stay here, too, and we all stay together… _please,_ Mamma, please, I do _anything_ …”

Her gray eyes are full of achingly-sad desperation. It makes Jon genuinely ill, and it’s a sickness mirrored in his wife’s violet eyes. Her face crumbles. She reaches out and gathers Lyaella into her arms immediately. She drags her over and pulls her to sit between her legs, cradling her back against her body in a tight hug. She kisses the top of her head.

“You don’t have to do anything but ask,” Dany murmurs against her hair. “Will it make your nightmares go away?”

“I don’t know,” Lyaella admits. “But it makes me happy ‘cause if I wake up I will see you, and Aemon, and Daddy, and I can hug you and hear your heart…”

Lyaella reaches up and touches over Dany’s scar. Dany hugs her tighter and rests her cheek against Lyaella’s hair in response.

“Aemon might wake you all night long. It’s not fun to be in here. Daddy and I hardly sleep at all.”

“It’s okay,” Lyaella assures Dany. “I want to, Mamma.”

Jon knows allowing her to stay in here will likely result in less sleep for both him and Dany— as Aemon and Lyaella are likely to wake each other all night long— but if there’s a chance it’ll result in more comfort for Lyaella, he’s more than willing to try. He and Dany communicate that through a quick glance at one another, and then Dany nods. The relief Lyaella feels at that decision is visible.

“I can sit with you and read?” Lyaella asks Dany hopefully. She looks over at Aemon, still snoozing deeply atop Jon’s chest. “Aemon’s not _hungy_. So I can sit with you now?”

Dany leans in and kisses her cheek. “Yes. Read aloud to me, sweetling. I want to hear about Daenys’s dreams, too.”

“Okay,” Lyaella smiles.

What Lyaella reads to them is certainly entertaining and interesting enough, but she slips to sleep quickly anyway. She’s more soothed by Dany’s hold than anything else. She falls asleep hugging her mother’s arms to her as if she’s afraid she’ll get moved from Dany’s embrace as she sleeps. Dany gently strokes her curls back, mindful not to wake her, and Jon sees a deep frown tugging the corners of her lips down.

“I must do better. She feels neglected by me.” It’s not a question she’s asking. She’s clearly already decided she’s failing their daughter. Jon can’t allow it.

“You can’t do anything about how needy newborns are. Things will get better once he’s out of this phase. Lyaella understands.”

“Does she?” Dany challenges. She looks over at Jon. “It’s not fair to her. And it’s not fair to you, either. Taking care of her has fallen on you.”

“Spending time with our daughter is not a chore,” Jon reminds her. “I’m her father. It’s my duty to take care of her.”

“Of course, but you’re not a father alone, either. I think she’s right about us all staying together. If they wake each other, they wake each other: none of us are sleeping any as it is, anyway. At least, if we’re all in here, we can all be _here_. I can be there when she wakes upset, and you can spend more time with Aemon. _That’s_ not fair to you, either.”

Jon holds Aemon securely to his heart as he slides across the bed towards Dany. Once they’re side by side, he wraps his arm around her shoulders and pulls her close.

“And none of it is your fault. You’re taking too much on. This is just the way things are right now.”

She shakes her head. “I just don’t remember being this tired with Lyaella. I don’t remember it being this…” she searches for the right word. “Relentless.”

Jon ends up echoing Davos. “That’s because the only thing we focused on after Lyaella was born was Lyaella and each other. We weren’t here being pulled in a thousand different directions.”

She turns her face to the side and presses it against his bicep. Her sigh is weary and exhausted.

“That reminds me. Lord Tyrion will be here first thing in the morning.”

Jon feels his stomach clench with trepidation. “Another update on the Faith?”

“Or another equally-pressing matter.”

Right then, the only truly pressing matters in the world to Jon are Lyaella’s happiness, Aemon’s safety, and Dany’s comfort. Nothing else feels real. All Tyrion’s matters could be conflicts from storybooks for how faraway they feel. And he knows that’s a problem in itself, but what can he do for it? He and Dany are wrapped up here in this world of their own, and it’s wrought with its own challenges and conflicts. More than he expected there’d be.

“Why don’t you sleep, too?” he suggests. He lightly touches their son’s hair. His breaths are still even and deep; he doesn’t seem likely to wake any time soon. “Aemon’s content. Rest with Lyaella, and when Aemon does wake, we’ll switch off.”

She falls back against the pillows, pulling Lyaella down with her. Lyaella shifts in her sleep, but only to readjust herself and cuddle atop her mother. Dany yawns as she pulls their covers up over her and Lyaella.

“All right,” she agrees. She kisses the top of Lyaella’s hair again. Her relief to have Lyaella clutched to her heart is touching; it brings heat to the backs of Jon’s eyes. He’s certain Dany’s missed having one-on-one time with Lyaella as much as Lyaella has, and who wouldn’t? Their girl is so deeply special and wonderful…Jon’s love for her only grows as she does. Seeing how sweet she is with her little brother only adds to it, too.

Dany falls asleep almost immediately, slipping into a deep, comforted stupor with Lyaella. Lyaella sleeps just as soundly as Dany does, and for a time, Jon is content just to stroke Aemon’s tiny back and smile at his wife and daughter. _These_ are the quiet, golden moments he anticipated and looked forward to all of Dany’s pregnancy. He wants to close his hands around each second and cherish it, but he feels it slip by quicker than he’d like. An hour or so later, Aemon stirs and begins to whimper; either Dany began to rouse at the same moment as him or she wasn’t sleeping as soundly as Jon assumed because she sits up at that first sound. She carefully and gently eases their daughter onto the mattress beside her, and then she sits up and reaches for their son before he can begin fully crying. She murmurs soothingly to him and kisses his cheek as she takes him from Jon. She looks over at Jon once Aemon’s settled at her breast.

“Now _you_ sleep,” she orders, sounding every bit a queen. And who is he to defy her? As he slides beneath the covers and snuggles close to their daughter, he gazes up at his wife— at the moonlight pooled on her tousled silver hair, the glow illuminating her bare shoulders and breasts, the sweet smile gracing her lips as she gazes at their son— and he thinks, _she’s more than a queen. A maker of life, a builder of worlds…_

His exhaustion twists those words and turns them inward, and it’s them his dreams build upon. They’re sweet dreams. He can’t remember any specifics when the sound of Aemon’s cries wake him sometime later, but he knows Dany was in them.

“What is it?” Dany murmurs softly. For a moment, Jon thinks she’s speaking to Lyaella because Lyaella is shifting restlessly, but as he props himself against the pillows and blinks the sleep from his eyes, he sees her gazing at their fitful son. She holds him close to her— one hand cupping beneath his bottom, the other cupping his head— and rests her cheek against his hair as she reassures him, pressing kisses to his scalp every other word. Her dressing gown is still pooled at her waist, indicating that Aemon’s only just been fed and hunger is not his current problem. “What, my sweet boy? What do you need? What’s wrong?”

Maybe it’s Jon’s sleep-tangled mind that lends him the surreal clarity, but it’s suddenly clear to him, no matter how absurd it may be. He looks between Lyaella and Aemon, and then he reaches down and strokes Lyaella’s curls back from her damp forehead.

“It’s Lyaella,” he murmurs.

Dany’s eyes fly to him at that. She holds his serious gaze, and then she looks down at their fidgety daughter, and then at their wailing son. It doesn’t make much sense, and he has no idea why it might be, but Jon is certain that he’s right. He realizes then that it’s not a coincidence that Aemon’s fussiness has spiraled right as Lyaella’s nightmares have. Somehow, the two things are linked, though he doesn’t know which caused the other or what it might mean.

“Wake her,” Dany urges. “If she’s truly having a nightmare, the sleep she’s getting will be of no use to her. Not if it causes her terror and hysteria.”

Jon couldn’t agree more. He sits up fully and scoops his little daughter into the cradle of his arms like she’s still a baby, too. She stirs, and as soon as she wakes, she begins crying. Jon kisses her wet cheeks.

“Were you having a nightmare?” he asks. He has to speak louder than he’d like to be heard over Aemon’s intensifying howls.

It takes Lyaella a minute or so to answer. She sounds confused when she does.

“I don’t— I don’t know,” she answers, her voice trembling. She sucks in a shaky breath, and then she looks up at Jon like she’s only just realized where she is. She relaxes and burrows into his embrace. “Aemon is crying, _Fawder_ …”

“I know,” Jon assures her. His words seem to be forming at his lips before they form in his mind; he’s not sure why he says what he does next. “Do you want to hold him? I’m sure Mamma’s tired.”

 _Lyaella’s_ tired: she yawns even as she nods against Jon’s shoulder. She’s too sweet to have ever said no to that question, even if the thought of holding her heavy baby brother while still half-asleep is truly an unpleasant one. But Jon doesn’t think that it is. 

“I hold him, Mamma,” she mutters, her words thick with sleep. Her eyes are still shut. “I help you…”

Dany gives Jon a curious look as he lays Lyaella on the mattress between them, but she doesn’t question it. She gently settles Aemon in the circle of Lyaella’s little arms, hovering nervously for a moment to make sure Aemon’s head is secure, but Lyaella attends to that worry before Dany even has to remind her. She snuggles him close to her side, her grip firm but gentle, and Aemon’s cries instantly dwindle and disappear. Lyaella yawns and turns her face to kiss his dark hair. She leaves her face pressed there as she drifts fearlessly towards sleep once again. Jon can’t remember the last time she went back to sleep so easily following a nightmare.

He and Dany hover and watch their children snooze, hardly daring to breathe too loudly, much less speak. Dany moves the blankets down so they aren’t anywhere near Aemon’s face, and then she curls on her side facing him, and Jon curls around Lyaella so that their little ones are safe between them.

Dany voices the question nagging at Jon. “Was she having a nightmare because he was upset or was he upset because she was having a nightmare? Or is it a coincidence?”

There’s no way to know for certain. But Jon thinks it was more than a coincidence. He remembers then how Aemon would often settle and quiet within Dany’s womb when Lyaella hugged Dany’s belly. Is this really so different?

“I don’t know. But I think you were right before…keeping them apart makes things worse.”

Dany reaches out and gently strokes Aemon’s hair. “He seems happy enough now. And this is the first time Lyaella’s been able to fall right back asleep without needing warm milk, an hour of comforting, and the fire.”

Right then, Jon’s just so grateful for the quiet that he doesn’t care to question it much. He and Dany take turns watching over them as they sleep, and Aemon doesn’t wake again to nurse until just before dawn. Arya arrives to check on them as he finishes, and she offers to sit in the armchair with him and let both Jon and Dany sleep. They take her up on the offer, and though they don’t sleep long, it’s the longest period of consecutive sleep Jon and Dany have had since Aemon joined their family. Lyaella even manages to sleep until well past the sunrise, and after such a long, peaceful rest, she’s absolutely chipper. She’s back to her old self as she bounces around their bedchambers that morning, her face glowing with a constant smile.

“I’m a dragon,” she tells Dany and Jon. She flaps her arms and ‘flies’ around the bed as her brother snoozes between Dany’s breasts. Jon’s fingers tangle in Dany’s hair as he continues braiding it. “I go North, Daddy, and I see the ice circles and I just— I just—!” she sucks in a huge breath of air and then blows it back out, clearly intending it to be dragonfire. She ‘breathes fire’ ’til she’s red in the face, and then she flops face-first onto the end of the bed. Her next words are muffled into the covers. “Then the Great Other can’t come ‘cause his circles are gone, and his circles— his circles call to him.”

“Oh?” Dany asks with interest. “Is this something you saw in your dreams? Or something you’re playing?”

Lyaella lifts her face and looks seriously at Dany. “Oh, I just _petending_ , Mamma. I’m not really flying. It’s just breaths, see?” she huffs slowly to show Dany that no flames are coming out. Dany looks down at Aemon to hide her smile.

“Oh, I see,” she says. To Jon, her smile is audible in her words, but Lyaella doesn’t notice. She goes back to playing, jumping from sofa to window ledge to chair, and Jon is so happy to see her happy that he doesn’t even attempt to rein her in. She plays dragons until Arya arrives, and then she lets Arya hold her in her lap long enough to swipe a comb through her curls and dress her for the day. After that, she sits in Dany’s lap on the balcony and eats her breakfast while Jon cradles Aemon and enjoys the bright sunlight and his daughter’s bright words.

“You’re in a much better mood today, Moonbloom,” Arya teases Lyaella. “You were such a grumpy dragon yesterday. I thought you were going to raze King’s Landing.”

“I was— I was just _seepy_ ,” Lyaella admits.

Dany tickles her at once. The three adults smile at the precious laughter that tumbles from her lips as she squirms and giggles.

“Oh, _now_ you’ll admit it? When yesterday you _insisted_ you weren’t tired _at all_?” Dany demands, smiling. She hugs Lyaella close. “I am so fond of this sweet, honest Lyaella.”

Lyaella looks up at her. “Not grumpy Lyaella?”

“Well, grumpy Lyaella, too. I love all the Lyaellas,” Dany admits. She kisses Lyaella’s nose and answers Arya with her eyes still on Ly. “She slept better last night. That’s why she’s happier.”

“Yes,” Lyaella affirms, nodding along with her mother’s words. “I _seeped_ and cuddled my baby Aemon, and my nightmares go so far, far away.”

Arya nods seriously. “That’s wonderful, Lyaella. I hope they _stay_ far away. But in case they don’t…” she rummages inside her cloak for a moment, and then she withdraws a beautiful cloth-bound book. It’s violet as moonblooms, as Aemon and Dany’s eyes, and Lyaella hops excitedly in Dany’s lap.

“My book?!” she asks Arya.

“Your book. Mother told me about it when I visited early this morning. The library maesters made it special for you right then.”

Arya passes it across the table to Lyaella. Jon turns his focus to Aemon as he shifts inside his blankets, but after determining he’s still sleeping soundly, he looks back at his daughter. She’s carefully opening her book.

“It has _my name_!” she beams. She touches the inside cover. “Lyaella Targaryen! And that’s _me_!”

“It certainly is. There’s just nobody quite like you, is there?” Arya jests.

“Aemon’s like me,” Lyaella says at once, her eyes still on her book. She turns the blank pages gently, inspecting each one. “One day we can even share our minds sometimes.”

“Yes, well, most siblings do speak their minds to each other. Gods know Auntie Sansa and I did so on a number of occasions,” Arya quips.

But she’s missed what Lyaella’s said entirely. Jon glances quickly at Dany to see if she understood, and she’s already looking at him. To them, there’s a much different meaning to _sharing minds_ , one that’s much more than just venting emotions to a trusted sibling. After Aemon’s birth, that ability has become even more sacred and secretive than it’d been before, though he’s not much closer to understanding it despite the fact that he’d been able to achieve it outside of the fire. He’s still not certain how he _had_. He hadn’t willing tried to merge his mind with hers when Aemon was born; he wouldn’t know how to do it even if he wanted to attempt it. It had happened on its own, just as it always happens in front of the fire. He had always assumed it was the fire itself that did it, that it was some ability gleaned from the power of the flames rather than some power inside himself. But in the days following Aemon’s birth, as he reflected on what had happened in that bathtub, he understood that it wasn’t the fire that caused the merging: it was the reverence, the single-minded focus, the presence. When he and Dany are in front of the fire together, they’re focused only on the flames, its images, and each other: everything else might as well exist in another world from them for all the attention they pay it. And the same could easily be said for the time spent bringing Aemon into the world (and more). As Dany birthed their son, their minds were rooted in that moment so fully that it bypassed even the focus and presence experienced in front of the flames. Dany was consumed by the process overtaking her body, and Jon was consumed by her. Never had they been more focused, and never had they been more reverent. No religious ceremony could ever approach it in significance or meaning. And no degree of closeness in Jon’s life has ever come close to what he felt in that shared experience with Daenerys. It was physical pain greater than any he had ever experienced or imagined, pain that left him in awe of his wife just as he ached for her. Yet at the same time, it was a moment of such shared sweetness and pure love that it left him feeling dazed for days afterwards. He still catches himself, at times, feeling a wave of deep yearning for something he never knew existed until now, like his and Dany’s minds were crafted to be twined together and they’ve been living ripped apart all this time.

He and Dany don’t talk about it often— largely because they haven’t had the energy or the time it takes to deal with the wild emotions it wrings from the both of them— but any time they get a rare moment to themselves in the evenings, she asks him to sit in front of the fire with her. She sits between his legs again, and he holds her close and rests his cheek against the crown of her head. They unravel the day together, their memories dancing and weaving as one, and they say nothing, but they converse the entire time.

It’s an intimacy deeper than any other intimacy that exists. So to hear that his children might one day experience it with each other…he’s not sure what to think about that. But already he senses that it doesn’t really matter what he thinks about it. If his children become so close that they can weave minds the way that he and Dany can, there will be no keeping them apart. Just as nothing and no one could keep him and Dany apart.

IV.

They’re in such good moods after their restful night that they decide to visit the audience chamber for the first time since Aemon’s birth.

They’ve been told the people are overjoyed by the arrival of Prince Aemon, but they don’t realize the full force of that joy until stepping into the audience chamber. At first, when Jon looks around, he thinks he’s stepping into a different room altogether. It’s entirely transformed by the people’s love. It’s bursting with thousands of flowers in every shade of color imaginable, and at each bouquet, there are scrolls tied to the stems— letters from the people, most likely. Jon starts to demand why none of these letters had been brought to them, but he understands why quickly enough as they step fully into the chambers: the sheer amount is genuinely overwhelming. Had someone attempted to gather all of it up, it’d have taken them multiple trips with a cart to deliver them all, and Jon, Dany, Lyaella, and Aemon would be sleeping on beds of parchment.

Lyaella laughs and spins around the chambers, and for the next two hours, she’s entirely entertained. She flitters from flower to flower, sniffing them and carefully gathering a few special stems from each bunch. She carries the stems back a few at a time and lays them on Dany’s lap, so that by the time Dany and Jon are seeing their fifteenth visitor, Dany has flowers flowing down the length of her skirts. Red Fly and Blue Rat keep a close eye on Lyaella as she ventures further into the echoing chamber, but no one does more than smile at her: she’s beloved by all no matter the state of the Faith, and as of late, the people aren’t on the Faith’s side, anyway.

After sniffing every type of flower in the chambers and drowning Dany and Jon in ‘special ones’, she turns her focus to the letters. Jon and Dany take visitor after visitor, returning their focus to their daughter between each person so she can read them something particularly nice or funny from one of the many letters she’s read. By the time Aemon stirs in Jon’s arms and begins to cry, she’s sprawled out on a bed of roses and violets, at least fifty opened scrolls spread around her.

“I’m going to go sit with Ly while I nurse him,” Dany tells Jon. She takes Aemon from his arms and kisses their son’s soft cheek. “Do you want me to ask Grey Worm to shut the gates?”

Jon eyes the doorway. The remaining queue isn’t too long, and if it’s true that the Septon is trying to pollute the people against them again, it’s best to keep their relations with those people as close and amicable as possible. And letting them see Aemon and Lyaella is the best way to go about that. Every set of eyes that fell upon the prince and princess so far have lit up with utter and complete devotion, and utter and complete devotion is what they need to have— what they don’t want the Septon to have.

“No, I’ll stay and receive them,” he tells her. “There are only a few more.”

She leans in to kiss him. He can feel her smile against his lips, and it makes his own curve up. She goes to sit on the bed of flowers with their daughter; Lyaella lays across her lap and reads as Aemon nurses, and Jon feels immensely proud every time his eyes dance over towards them (which is often). It touches the commonfolk’s hearts to see the queen and her children curled up amongst their flowers and letters, and Jon makes a point to emphasize how much Lyaella has enjoyed reading them, how happy the queen was, how much they cherish their people…

By the time Grey Worm _does_ close the gates, he reports that more flowers and letters are being thrown over the gate. As Jon rises and sets towards his family, he finds himself weaving carefully through the flowers and letters littering the floor of the audience chamber, not wanting to accidentally tread on any. He sinks down and joins Lyaella and Dany on their fragrant bed. Dany’s smiling as he leans in to kiss Aemon’s hair, and Lyaella crawls into his lap immediately afterwards and puckers her lips, seeking a kiss, too. Jon leans in so she can kiss his cheek. He sweeps her up into his arms and cradles her just as Dany’s cradling Aemon. She laughs and hides her face into his jerkin.

“You’re my little baby, did you know that?” he teases.

“I’m not!” she says automatically, but she seems pleased by the coddling. Her smile grows.

“You are! You’re my sweet baby,” he insists.

She doesn’t argue. She smiles brightly as he rocks her in his arms, content to be a baby even if only for a brief moment. Jon knows she’s still jealous at times of the amount of attention Aemon gets, but if she only knew how much he loved her, she wouldn’t worry about her place in their hearts ever again.

Lyaella lets him carry her like a baby all the way back to Rhaella’s Fortress. The charade goes on until Ezhi arrives with Temmo and asks if Lyaella wants to play, and then Lyaella squirms from Jon’s arms and lands on her feet without hesitation.

“Temmo! Temmo, look at my brother! At my Aemon! Look!” Lyaella exclaims. She’s extremely proud as she grabs Dany’s hand and pulls her over towards Temmo. Dany clutches Aemon securely as she kneels down to show the little boy their baby.

Temmo inches forward and casts a slightly disinterested eye over the baby for a moment, shrugs, and says, “I seen babies before. Do you want to play dragons, Lyaella?”

Ezhi smacks the back of Temmo’s head. He shrugs away from her and glowers.

“He is _beautiful_ , Temmo,” Ezhi corrects firmly. “That is Prince Aemon.”

Temmo shrugs again. “Okay?”

Lyaella does not appreciate his blasé attitude any more than Ezhi does. She crosses her arms and ignores his further attempts to talk to her. It isn’t until he sighs and says something in Dothraki in a begrudging tone that Lyaella smiles and agrees to give him the time of day. The two race over to the study to drape blankets over the desks in there (“to make caves!” Lyaella exclaims), and Ezhi sets her hand on Dany’s shoulder as she turns to follow them, stilling her.

“I’ll watch them,” she assures her. She reads both Dany and Jon’s hesitancy. “We won’t leave the study.”

 _That_ Jon can allow. Ezhi smiles at Aemon, who’s snoozing contently in Dany’s arms, and then she hurries into the study to supervise the little ones. Leaving Jon and Dany the rare opportunity of being almost alone together.

Jon knows exactly what he wants, and when he looks at Dany, he sees the same desire mirrored in her eyes. They hold their breath as they carry Aemon into his nursery and lower him into his cradle. Once they affirm he’s not going to wake and begin wailing, they weave their fingers together and step through into their bedchambers. They close the main door but leave the door to Aemon’s nursery cracked so they can listen out for him. Dany tugs a soft coverlet from their bed as Jon kneels in front of the fireplace. By the time he has the fire roaring in the hearth, Dany’s already sitting on the thick Myrish carpet in front of the fireplace and waiting for him. His heart feels heavy and tender as he sits behind her and pulls her back against him. He exhales as he presses his lips to her shoulder, and by the time he draws in his next breath, their minds are already twined. He meant to do it this time, yet it was as effortless as always.

They sit together and share in dozens of thoughts and feelings. They think about Aemon, about Lyaella, both their minds and hearts soaked through with pride and adoration. Every sweet thought Jon has about his wife is matched in kind; she hears all the tiny things he thinks throughout the day, all the quiet admirations that fill his head, and— though it always surprises him— he hears the same from her. It’s a quiet dance of gentle reassurances and a silent transfer of respect: Dany recalls every moment she felt guilty for ‘neglecting Lyaella’, and Jon counters it with every soft praise that flittered through his mind just that day as he gazed at her and their children. Jon admits to thoughts of selfishness and replays all the occasions he’d thought _forget the realm, forget everything but this_ , and Dany counters with affection-tinted memories of all the small things he’s done for their kingdom since Aemon’s birth, things so little Jon hardly noticed he was doing them— like the monthly sickhouse inventory forms he’d reviewed and signed hours after Aemon was born, or the multitude of nighttime ‘emergencies’ he’d stepped from their chambers to make decisions on. His wife thinks, _if anyone has been neglecting our kingdom, it’s me,_ to which Jon thinks, _there wouldn’t even be a kingdom without you. You deserve this time with Aemon. He and Lyaella_ are _the kingdom, after all._

That brings intertwined thoughts that are curious and hesitant, thoughts of their children and what the future might bring. They imagine different scenarios together, feeling each other’s instinctive reactions at the sight of each one. Being tangled together makes everything clearer: Jon becomes more aware of his own feelings as they merge and melt with his wife’s, and it comes to some surprise to him to find the future scenario that causes him the most distress is _not_ the one where his children choose each other. It’s the one where Lyaella chooses someone far away, the version that takes her to Dorne or somewhere similarly far. The one that takes her from her home— and from him.

 _Is that selfish of me?_ he wonders. _Is it controlling?_ He doesn’t want to be another Targaryen king moving his children about like they’re Cyvasse pieces. He knows they’re little people— he knows they’re in charge of their own choices and lives— yet that doesn’t stop him from fearing what some of those choices might be. It doesn’t stop him from instinctively wanting to stop the ones that will take them from him.

 _If it is, I’m selfish, too,_ his wife responds. _I don’t want her to ever go away, either. Or Aemon. I want them both here for as long as we are._

They share in the understanding that they will never hold their children back if they one day choose to leave King’s Landing, but that it will likely devastate them. It’s a pain they’ll just have to shoulder should the day ever come.

Understood in their shared mind, too, is the knowledge that— no matter what choices Lyaella and Aemon make as they grow— Jon and Dany will support them through it all. There’s nothing they could do that would make them love them less, nothing they could choose that would make them turn their backs on them. Absolutely nothing. But they had known that from the moment they first held them.

V.

“Are you _ever_ going to go home?”

Yara looks up. She greets Gendry with a very particular hand gesture.

“Are _you_?” She shoots back. _Fucker._ He approaches the table she and Sansa are sitting at, and Yara kicks her foot out and nails the leg of the chair he’s about to sink into, sending it quite a few inches further than he’d been anticipating. Arya snatches his arm and steadies him before his ass hits the floor.

“Do better,” Arya tsks at Yara. “And haven’t you heard? Gendry’s not going anywhere now that there’s a baby here. He loves babies, apparently.”

Yara’s not certain what sort of argument the two have been having on their way here, but it’s clear they’ve been having one. Gendry scowls at Arya, and Arya scowls right back. Sansa clears her throat lightly at Yara’s side, and when Yara glances down at her downturned face, she sees the slightest incline at the corners of her smooth lips. Yara assumes she knows what the two are at odds about, and that cheers her up considerably because that means _she’ll_ soon know. She leans back in her own chair and crosses her arms over her chest smugly. Spending time with Sansa is often like perusing a book of unlimited secrets; it’s powerful and exciting, even if Sansa herself still doesn’t seem very aware of that. Yara’s doing her best to make her see it, but it’s slow, careful work, and Yara’s never been one for subtlety or tact. Not like Sansa is.

“Prince Aemon _is_ adorable,” Red Fly pipes up. “Such a round, happy baby…though he doesn’t do much, does he?”

Tyrion pushes his stack of papers across the table towards Sansa. Sansa sets her hand atop them but doesn’t begin perusing them, still wrapped up in some budgetary document the king marked up with revisions.

“He’s only been alive for five moonturns,” Tyrion says flatly. “What do you expect him to do? Swordfight? Declare war? Revise tax rates? He giggles, smiles, shits, eats, plays, and sleeps. That’s pretty refined for a baby.”

“He also gives very respectable glares,” Arya adds. She puffs up with so much pride you’d think she shoved the baby from her own birth canal. “One of the kitchen boys got in his face and smiled at him with foul-smelling breath…I’ve never seen an infant look so disgusted or offended.”

The baby doesn’t seem to like strangers in general, or really anyone outside of a select circle of people. Despite having seen Yara quite consistently, he never seems very certain about the situation when she holds him. It’s the opposite when he sees his family: he lights up with a bright smile and literally trembles with happiness whenever his mother, father, or sister enter a room. But strangers rank somewhere near insects in terms of gathering and keeping his interest, and sometimes even beneath them depending on the insect (Yara once saw him try to grab a shiny metallic beetle and cram it into his mouth.) Yara thinks he just can’t be bothered as a general rule and personality trait, but the people of Flea Bottom boast and brag that he was ‘born a king’. She gets great joy in reminding them that Lyaella is the heir, something that they— offensively— seem to keep forgetting now that a male has been born. Which is a great shame because if they weren’t blinded by their penis-worshiping, they’d see that Lyaella is clearly better suited for ruling than anyone else alive.

“Yet Bran wasn’t too impressed with him,” Tyrion comments, and Sansa tenses at once.

“Lay off Bran,” Yara snaps. She doesn’t like Lord Tyrion, and the only reason she tolerates him is for Sansa’s benefit. But if he’s going to start upsetting her, he can haul his tiny perfidious ass out of the room. “He didn’t leave because of Prince Aemon. He came all the way back here just _for_ Prince Aemon.”

 _All the way here for three days, anyway._ Yara can’t defend Bran very well because she doesn’t have any better of an idea of why he truly left than anyone else. He’d arrived two weeks ago after nearly three weeks of traveling, stayed for three days, and then left abruptly with no explanations given. Yara thinks he’s quite possibly the strangest and saddest person she’s ever met— and she’s met a few— so it wasn’t too terribly out of character for him in her opinion, but it left Sansa, Arya, and Jon concerned. They can semi-confidently rule out physical illness, at least, as the night before he fled, he’d been sharing a rich dinner and lively conversation with the little princess and seem to be in fine spirits.

“All right,” Sansa says, finally looking up from the thick stack of parchment in front of her. “My brother’s made some…ambitious corrections. I’ve tried to balance out the changes and provide the appropriate allocation adjustments, but it’s much different than we’d planned for, Lord Tyrion. I think the temporary peace with the Faith has given His and Her Grace a bit too much free time to dream and ponder…”

“Free time? You’re joking, right?” Arya snorts. “Have you spent _any_ time with our niece and nephew? They’re a kingdom of their own.”

Tyrion takes the papers from Sansa and immediately makes a loud noise of disbelief at the first thing he sees. He only gets more incredulous as he scans his eyes down the parchment. Yara already skimmed it the first time Sansa read through it, and while the king seems very loose with his coins, she respects the initiative. His dreams of an improved water sanitation system with spigots of clean, fresh water outside every home are storybook worthy. Whether or not even Sansa can edit those dreams to make them a reality is yet to be seen.

Yara and Red Fly sit back and watch Gendry and Arya argue while Sansa and Tyrion debate King Jon’s changes. Arya’s fierceness is evenly matched by Gendry’s stubbornness, and for some time, neither one of them has the upper hand, and they seem to be arguing just to argue. They argue about the right salve for Gendry’s burn, about the gift they gave the princess for her most recent name day, about the proper time of day to have a bath (apparently there’s a right answer for that). It’s clear to Yara that they’re truly arguing about something of great importance beneath their petty bickering, but the surface arguments are far too entertaining to make her want to probe any deeper.

They’d probably go on arguing for much longer, but Grey Worm arrives with the princess, and that distracts both Arya and Gendry instantly. She and Grey Worm are likely on their way pay their daily visits to Princess Lyaella’s growing animal hoard: the princess is wearing an apron over her dress and thick, scuffed-up boots. She seems particularly cheerful as she bounces to them, and by the time she reaches the council table, Yara notices her hands are carefully cupped in front of her. Arya notices, too.

“What do you have there?” she demands at once. She looks at Grey Worm, and Grey Worm grimaces. Arya narrows her eyes at him. “What? Lyaella, show me.”

Lyaella is impervious to Arya’s wariness. She’s beaming, but it’s a secretive, pleased smile, one that tells everyone in the room she’s up to something she knows she shouldn’t be— something she thinks she’s gotten away with. She reaches up towards Arya, bringing her cupped hands as close to Arya’s searching gaze as she can, and then she very carefully and gently lifts her hand a tiny bit to reveal her treasure…

Arya is taken aback by whatever it is. She rears back in surprise, and then she huffs.

“ _No_ ,” she scolds. She grabs Lyaella’s elbow. “We’re taking that mouse outside to the cats right now. You can’t pick up _mice,_ Lyaella, it’s disgusting and it’ll make you sick. Grey Worm, what do you have to say about this?”

He lifts his shoulders. “She just saved it from a cat. Making her give it back is harsh.”

Sansa backs Arya up. “Arya’s right— it’s disgusting and unsanitary—”

“It’s not! It’s not, Auntie Sansa! He’s cute! He’s so cute and so, so sweet! Look!”

Yara anticipates Sansa’s fear, but it still amuses her. Sansa bolts from her chair as Lyaella brings her cupped hands closer, backing away quickly.

“No! Get rid of it _now_ , Lyaella! And then we’re going to scrub you in a hot bath!”

“No! I’m going to see Sunshine and Cow One and all my other friends! It’s not bath time!”

“Because it’s not night,” Gendry quips to Arya. “Even Lyaella knows the proper time to bathe—”

“Not _now,_ Gendry!”

“Mice _do_ carry diseases,” Tyrion speaks up, his eyes still on the papers in front of him. “At least go set it free, Princess.”

“ _Nooooooo_ ,” Lyaella moans. She stamps her foot, her eyes growing glassy. “Then he’ll be all by hisself! All alone! _No_ , Tyion! He’s gonna live with my friends!”

Arya tries a different tactic. “Well, that isn’t very nice of you because Sunshine is _terrified_ of mice. Absolutely _petrified_. When she was a little piglet, a ferocious pack of mice attacked her as she slept and bit all over her. That’s why she’s got those spots on her belly.”

Lyaella stares at Arya for a long moment. Her eyes drift down to her cupped hands, and then she looks back up at Arya.

“How do you know that?” she asks.

Arya heaves a sigh. “Sunshine’s old owner told me. It’s very sad. And now, when you put that mice in the stables with Sunshine, she’s probably going to die of fright. No more patting her belly.”

Lyaella’s brow furrows. This lie has clearly troubled her, but it doesn’t do what Arya was obviously hoping it would.

“Oh,” Lyaella says sadly. “Poor Sunshine…” she turns and heads towards the door. “I’m gonna— I got to go. I’m going to tell Daddy I need a new place for my mouse to live.”

“Lyaella, if you take that mouse back with you, you’ll make Aemon sick,” Yara warns.

That draws Lyaella to an immediate stop. She spins around, her face falling.

“ _What_?”

“Yes. Vermin carry all sorts of nasty things, things that will kill little babies like Prince Aemon.”

It’s the truth, yet everyone in the room inhales sharply or winces. Yara understands why quickly enough. The princess’s eyes widen and dampen, and then her face crumbles, her tears eroding her happy expression like waves demolishing a pile of sand. She begins to cry, and as she does, her hands slacken enough for the desperate little mouse to squeeze between the gaps of her fingers and leap to the floor. Sansa hurriedly darts out of its path as it shoots across the council room, headed towards a shadowy corner.

The loss of the mouse only upsets Lyaella more. She goes to bury her face in her hands, but Arya reaches out and grasps her hands before she can, clearly not wanting her mice-fingers rubbing at her eyes. She’s so devastated she hardly notices as Grey Worm hoists her up into his arms. She babbles _‘oh no, no! My Aemon! No!’_ between sobs, so guilt-ridden you’d think she’d literally killed the babe with her own two hands. 

“Great. Thanks, Yara,” Gendry says dryly. “Let’s tell the little princess she’s going to kill her infant brother. Great solution.”

“That’s not what I said,” Yara scoffs. But she does feel guilty for how upset Lyaella is. She hadn’t intended for that to happen, though now that it has, she realizes she really should’ve seen it coming. Lyaella adores the prince as much as his parents do.

Arya and Sansa reassure Lyaella that Aemon is going to be just fine, but Lyaella’s mood has been destroyed.

“ _This_ is why your mother didn’t want you to skip nap to go to the stables,” Grey Worm sighs.

Lyaella looks up at that. Her face shines beneath tears and snot. “I-I want to g-go h-home! I n-n-nap with A-Aemon!”

Grey Worm looks grateful for the change of plans. “Yes. That sounds like the best course of action.”

“ _A-Awa,_ wash me!” Lyaella begs. She holds her hands out and gazes at them with haunted eyes as if they’re covered in the blood of some innocent victim. “Please, _Awa_!”

“Yes, let’s go,” Arya relents, biting back a sigh. “To the bathing chambers it is. Your father’s late joining me for training, anyway.”

Lyaella sniffles. She goes to wipe at her nose, but Arya reaches out and uses her own sleeve before she can touch her face. Yara looks over at Sansa right on time: her face is spasming in disgust. Yara laughs.

“Daddy is n-napping,” Lyaella tells Arya. She hiccups so hard her curls fall into her face and stick to her wet cheeks. She takes a deep breath after that, calming herself slightly. “With baby Aemon and Mamma, ‘cause Aemon— Aemon, he was snuggled— Aemon was snuggly with him and he wanted Daddy.”

“I figured as much. I'm surprised he let you leave,” Arya says. It’s a good point. Aemon is a calm baby who rarely cries, but the sight of King Jon, Queen Daenerys, or Princess Lyaella walking from the room often sails him right off into a current of pure hysteria.

“I sneaked like a little— like a little baby— like a little baby mouse…”

And now she’s teary again. For the fifth time just that day, Yara feels grateful that she doesn’t have children. It seems to be a whole lot of soothing and mollifying, and Yara’s never been any good at that.

“Okay. Bath and nap it is,” Arya declares firmly. She looks over at Gendry. “Are you coming along or staying to sulk?”

His jaw is clenched firmly. “Coming along.”

He follows after Arya, Lyaella, and Grey Worm. Yara can hear Lyaella venting about the baby mouse all the way down the corridor. She’s never known a person to have such intense feelings over vermin before, especially not a person with five dragons to interact with.

Things quiet down in Arya and Gendry’s absence. Tyrion and Sansa debate numbers for quite a while while Yara and Red Fly play a game of marbles, and then— _finally_ — Tyrion gathers his stack of parchment and takes his leave. Yara stares hard at Red Fly, and when he fails to rise, she kicks his shin beneath the table. He jumps up.

“I’ll go check on…things,” he says quickly.

“Things?” Sansa asks flatly.

“Like, you know…things,” he nods. “Goodbye, Lady Sansa.” He inclines his head at Yara. “Queen Yara. Your people must be missing you _terribly_ …”

Yara resists the urge to scowl at him. She knows well what he’s doing, and it works. Sansa looks over at her after Red Fly exits the council chambers, her thin brows lowered slightly over her eyes.

“You must have great faith in your council. It _has_ been a while,” she says.

“I chose them myself: of course I have great faith in them,” Yara dismisses.

Her reason for remaining— the one that she gives everyone, anyway— is that she’s studying the sickhouses, scholarhouses, and glass gardens in hopes of bringing the concepts back to the Iron Islands. Her ‘secondary reason’— the reason she offers whenever people don’t believe the first and feel the need to probe deeper— is that she wants to give Queen Daenerys a bit of a reprieve. She’d been the one here helping to manage things the last time she gave birth, and she says she thinks the queen deserves the same respite this time. Yet the true reason, buried down beneath all these other ones, so far down that it has never seen the light of day, is that she’s taken a liking to Lady Sansa, and she stubbornly decided many moons ago that she wasn’t going to leave until she _at least_ got a kiss. She told herself this desire comes from her love of conquests; those with iron blood are naturally suited for it, and Yara herself has yet to fail to sway someone over in her favor. She loves a challenge. But lately, it’s been less about conquering and more about wanting to see this woman who’s been wronged by so many men learn to trust and enjoy herself again.

“I suppose,” Sansa comments. She thumbs at the edges of the stack of parchment in front of her, grimacing briefly at Jon’s handwritten edits. “If only Queen Daenerys and Jon were the same way.”

“It’s difficult to step away from a kingdom when you’re still living in its castle,” Yara points out. She knows Sansa would like nothing more than to take over entirely for a spell, but it will never happen: the Queen regularly grants audience to her people while nursing her babe, and if a new baby isn’t enough to pull her from her kingdom, nothing will be. “You know, if you ever desire a trip to Pyke, your voice and ideas would be welcomed ones. I’d like guidance on my new projects.”

Or just more time to get to know her, but really, that’s the same thing. Sansa is her most comfortable when she’s working on tasks or solving some sort of problem.

“I think you ought to prioritize the glass gardens. The success of that venture would do wonders for the Iron Islands. How can I help?”

“From afar or at my side?”

Sansa considers that for a moment, her eyes turning back to the paper sets in front of her.

“At your side, perhaps. I’d like to see the Iron Islands.”

“And I’d like to see you there.”

Sansa’s cheeks pink. Yara feels a rush of pride, and she nearly continues on, but she knows when and where to stop. She toes the line gently and carefully, never daring to stick so much as a toe over it before Sansa reaches over to pull her forward herself. It’s excruciatingly frustrating at times, but walking away now isn’t an option: she’s in the race ’til the end.

“I should bring Jon these papers back,” Sansa finally says. She ducks her face as she gathers and sorts them, her cheeks nearly as vivid as her hair. “Do you want to come with me?”

“Sure. I’d never miss a chance to see you and King Jon argue.”

“If I can get Daenerys on my side, we won’t argue,” Sansa says. She rises from the table, grasps the parchment to her chest, and waits for Yara. Yara stands and joins her as they walk from the council chambers. “Though she rarely goes against him.”

“They rarely go against _each other,_ ” Yara corrects. She won’t let anyone try to say Queen Daenerys lets Jon make all the decisions. That’s disingenuous and untrue. “They’re strange. Have you seen the way they look at each other sometimes? Is that a Targaryen thing? Or a Once-Resurrected thing?”

“I think it’s just a lust thing.”

“No,” Yara laughs. “Trust me. I know ‘lust things’. They’ve got that, certainly, but I’m talking about that other look. Surely you’ve seen it?”

Sansa doesn’t miss much; it’d shock her to hear she’d missed the odd way the queen and king look at each other sometimes, like they’re having an entire conversation through their eyes.

“I have. I suppose that’s what happens when you’ve risen from a burning pyre with someone. Or perhaps just had children with them; I remember my mother and father communicating through looks.”

“Hm,” Yara says thoughtfully. “Seems boring to me.”

“I think it’s nice,” Sansa admits. “That’s when you know someone truly loves you. When they know you that deeply.”

“And he knows her deep, all right.”

Sansa knocks into her side at once. “ _Stop_."

She simply cannot.

“I could know you deep, Sansa,” Yara drawls, straightening her gait after Sansa’s push.

Sansa doesn’t seem to know what to say back to that. She flushes again, and then she clears her throat lightly and looks up at the sky.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she says, her tone airy.

“And _I’m_ sure you do,” Yara counters. She slows as they approach Rhaella’s Fortress; the guard at the main door waves at them and steps to the side. Yara keeps her eyes forward as she continues speaking, her tone casual. “And I know you’d like it.”

“Like what?” Sansa asks, her voice a pitch higher than before.

Yara feigns innocence. It’s not an easy thing to sell on her own face. “Being known like that.”

Sansa watches her feet as they step through into the Fortress. “I wouldn’t know. I never have been before.” There’s a brief pause, and then she looks up at Yara, her eyes churning with interest and curiosity. She considers her as they walk. And then…”Perhaps.”

Yara smirks, and then it grows into a grin. “‘Perhaps’?”

“Perhaps. I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet.”

Yara laughs at that. Sansa’s airy tone is almost cocky now like she’s realized the power is in her hands— and she likes it. Yara has to admit she likes it, too. It’ll be Sansa’s call what happens from here on out, but should she choose to open herself up to her, Yara’s confident she’ll have her views of sex entirely inverted in less than ten minutes.

“You’ll have plenty of time to decide in Pyke,” Yara says, and Sansa laughs.

“I don’t recall saying I was going with any certainty.”

“I’m simply being preemptive.”

They walk through the Chamber of Three Lights, nodding at the guards they pass by. They wind down the King and Queen’s corridor, stopping outside the solar first. When Yara pushes the door open to reveal an empty hearth and vacant room, she shuts the door back and continues on. Both she and Sansa hesitate outside the heavy bedchamber door.

“They might still be napping,” Sansa says. She hovers her fist in front of the door uncertainly for a moment, hesitating, and then she sighs and lightly raps her knuckles against the dark wood. They stand there and wait for a few moments, and right as Sansa’s backing up to leave, the golden knob turns. The door swings in to reveal the queen, radiant as ever. Somehow, the disheveled state of her pinned-up braids and slightly-rumbled silks make her appear even more beautiful. But it comes as no surprise: this is the woman who made pregnancy look alluring. Yara had never been attracted to pregnant women before seeing Daenerys Targaryen pregnant, but she’d often thought _yeah, I definitely would_ , no matter how bulbous the shape of her belly became, an honest opinion echoed by Daario (who became Yara’s fast friend and drinking companion in short time.)

The queen’s even lovelier now, though…while her body is undeniably nice to look at—her breasts are certainly worth the fuss baby Aemon deems them worthy of— her illuminating happiness is the most striking of all. It _almost_ convinces Yara that having children is a nice, pleasant ordeal. But not quite.

“Were you napping?” Sansa greets.

In answer, Queen Daenerys steps to the side and opens the door all the way. They can see the topmost part of the bed through the doorway; Princess Lyaella is reclined against the pillows talking seriously about something, and the baby prince is wide-awake. He’s lying on his belly beside Lyaella, playing happily with her silver curls and cooing. The only Targaryen on the bed who looks tired is King Jon.

“So no,” Sansa says, amused. “Is she still upset about the mouse?”

“Come in and listen for yourself,” Daenerys allows. She reaches towards the parchment in Sansa’s hands. “The budget proposal? That was quick.”

Sansa seems reluctant to pass it over. She lifts her fingers from it one by one, and then she says: “Before you look at it, I was hoping we could discuss it.”

“It seems to me it makes more sense for us to discuss it after I’ve looked over it in full so I know what it is I’m discussing,” the queen says, an eyebrow cocked. She tightens her hold on it, and Sansa nods. Yara knows she was hoping to begin her quest on getting Daenerys on her side, but it’s already looking unlikely.

They follow Daenerys into the bedchambers, and Yara shuts the door after them. Daenerys carries the parchment over to the opened balcony doors. She steps out onto the sun-warmed tiles and sinks down at a table still bearing remnants of their most recent snack (an assortment of fruit, bread, and cheese). Jon nods at Sansa and Yara, but he’s too wrapped up in his conversation with the princess to back away from it. It seems to be the most serious conversation about a mouse Yara’s ever witnessed.

“But— but he’s all alone now and I was gonna take him to my _friends_ , Daddy,” Lyaella persists. Her eyes are damp. “He was a little tiny mouse like this…” she holds her two index fingers close together, indicating the mouse’s length. “And he was grey and he had little whiskers, _Fawder_ …”

“Did he?” Jon asks. “You’re lucky he didn’t bite you.”

“He never bit me!” Lyaella exclaims, scandalized by the very thought. Aemon’s chubby hand releases her curls, and Yara flinches on Lyaella’s behalf as he suddenly reaches curiously and boldly for her face, his movements jerky and uncoordinated. His little nails get close to Lyaella’s eyes, but she reaches up and gently grasps his tiny hand with such perfect timing that Yara thinks she somehow knew he was going to reach for her face seconds before he did. Aemon coos loudly and kicks his chubby legs, his face bright with an adorable smile. Lyaella sighs as she flattens Aemon’s palm to her cheek. “I want to find him again, Daddy…”

“I know you do. And it was sweet to want to bring him someplace where he can have friends. But he’s going back to his mouse family now, Lyaella, and that’s where he belongs: with all the other mice.”

Aemon moves his hand to Lyaella’s mouth and pulls at her lip, hard enough that Jon reaches a hand out instinctively. Lyaella grabs Aemon’s hand before Jon has to.

“No, no,” she says, her tone soft. “ _Ouch,_ Brother…here, hold my hand. That’s sweet.”

She offers Aemon her hand, and he grabs it at once. He kicks his legs hard again and then rolls himself over onto his back. He studies Lyaella’s hand and babbles on loudly enough that Yara’s convinced he thinks he’s saying something very important.

“The mouse is with his mice family like I’m with my dragon family,” Lyaella finally says, the thought clearly comforting. She smiles at Jon. “ _Probly_ he’s happier there than in the _sable_.”

“Probably,” Jon agrees. He turns and looks at Yara and Sansa. “Have you come to argue?”

“Me?” Yara demands. “No. I’m here to _watch_ the arguing.”

“Of course,” Jon says dryly.

Yara nods. Sansa wastes no time entering her spiel on all the reasons Jon’s ideas are unrealistic and impossible, and while the two bicker, Yara watches the royal children giggle and play. Aemon belly-laughs so hard his giggles are nearly soundless as Lyaella rubs her nose against his, his face glowing with a brilliant smile and his violet eyes dancing with love. He tries to mimic Lyaella and do the same thing back to her, but he ends up almost head-butting her face instead, his legs and arms flailing happily.

“Not so graceful yet, is he?” Yara teases.

Lyaella smiles at her. “No, ‘cause he’s little. But watch, Yara! Watch!”

She pulls Aemon’s chubby hand to her mouth, presses her lips to his palm, and blows; the resulting sound sends Aemon into hysterics. Yara’s never seen him so adorable or sweet; in public, he’s often quiet and prefers to burrow in his mother or father’s embrace. Now, though, he could possibly be the world’s happiest baby. Yara catches herself smiling at him, though she still doesn’t like children. _But these children are special,_ she tells herself stubbornly.

By the time they leave, Sansa hasn’t achieved what she set out to achieve, but that doesn’t surprise Yara at all.

“Best find a way to make it happen,” she tells Sansa. “They don’t seem likely to sway.”

“Yes, well, I need a break from them,” Sansa grumbles, her failure clearly not well-received. “Perhaps if I join you in the Iron Islands they’ll realize how much work I actually do, and then they’ll listen to me better. Where do they think we’re going to get the funds? That’s what I’d love to know…”

Sansa complains about the queen and king’s ‘unrealistic ambitions’ the entire walk from Rhaella’s Fortress. They pass by quite a few structures that would’ve once been considered ‘unrealistic ambitions’ themselves, but Yara doesn’t mention that. Perhaps because she’s harboring her own set of unrealistic ambitions, too. A queen wants what a queen wants, and that’s equally true for herself and Queen Daenerys.

VI.

After the rough first few weeks following Aemon’s birth, things in their realm quiet down beautifully, almost as if the entire kingdom is playing a part in lulling their baby to sleep each night.

For once, everything seems to work in Dany’s favor. The people take to their new ideals of religious freedom and stand against the Septon each time he attempts to turn them against their king and queen, going so far as to threaten to have the current High Septon removed should he not ‘focus more on the Seven, and less on his own prejudices’. Dany works diligently to keep the public as adoring as they’ve been, letting her sweet children’s smiles and giggles speak volumes on her behalf as often as possible, and Jon approaches the problem from the opposite end: he goes to meet with the Septon at the end of Aemon’s first month of life, and Ser Davos tells Dany afterwards that he delivered a series of threats so vicious that the Septon said not a word the entire meeting and left on unsteady legs with his eyes wide as saucers. Dany doesn’t bother asking Jon what those ‘vicious threats’ were. She knows she’ll echo those threats regardless. Their love for their children is so immense that there is nothing Dany wouldn’t do to keep them safe, nothing too dark or harsh. Because there is nothing darker than the thought of her children being threatened or harmed. 

Things in Essos taper off, as well. The people in Essos, armed with more preventive election strategies and guidelines, elect a more appropriate round of leaders at their next election. Though those already elected, including the former slaver in Yunkai, have to finish out their terms, Dany receives word that, for the time being, they seem manageable and unlikely to cause major strife. The priestesses stop their sacrifices completely, too: not one person is killed in the months following Aemon’s birth— at least not that is reported to Daenerys, anyway.

The crops flourish, the people turn peaceful and happy, the weather warms. Ripe fruit hangs heavily from the various tree planted in the Garden, and the courtyard embracing Rhaella’s Fortress bursts with color and fragrance. And for a short time, Jon and Dany are able to rest and thrive. Aemon begins sleeping through the night by his fourth month of life, allowing them to recuperate some of their lost sleep, and without major crises to attend to, they are free to allocate their funds and energies to betterment projects. They begin the task of improving their water sanitation system. After that, they regulate the classes offered in their scholarhouses and recruit more learned men and women throughout the realm so that for four hours every day, there is a guaranteed spot for any child that wishes to learn. They expand their three scholarhouses twice, and yet by Aemon’s eighth month of life, the classes still often spill out into the courtyards. _There are worse problems to have in a realm,_ Ser Davos reminds them with a smile.

The most cherished blessings are the quiet ones, though. Like Aemon’s first smile, first laugh, first word, first crawl. Like Lyaella’s quiet, peaceful nights. As long as she sleeps snuggled up with her brother, her dreams are gentle and nondescript. The only night terrors she has are ones that come when she accidentally falls sleep somewhere other than her parents’ bed— on the sofa, or curled with Moonbloom in her nest, or in the library after a long session of reading. Yet even those are manageable. She sits with Jon or Dany in front of the fire, sips at warm milk, and writes about her nightmares as best she can. It helps her, though the first time Dany reads her fragmented recount of one, it disturbs her and leaves her feeling sick for days. The anguish she feels at the thought that _this_ is what her little girl has been carrying for over a year is deep and wringing. She and Jon send desperate ravens and search the realm for any and every book on dreams. Their search turns up twenty-three tomes, and of those twenty-three, one brings Lyaella some comfort: a book on dream interpretations. It gives her another ‘tool’ to cope with her nightmares, so that instead of simply writing about them, she’s able to flip through that other book and come up with some ‘real meanings’ for what she saw. Dany’s certain the book is all rubbish, but Lyaella pores over it like it holds some great truth, and that’s good enough for her.

They don’t know why the dreams come or what they mean or how to stop them for good, but they know being close to Aemon keeps them at bay, and because of that, they make no attempts to return Aemon to his cradle or Lyaella to her own bedchambers. On those rare nights that Lyaella does drift to sleep elsewhere, Aemon is fussy and irritable, and it does none of them any good to force the separation. So they don’t. The handmaidens gossip about it and claim the sleeping arrangement is out of paranoid fear that someone will come in the night and kill the Targaryen heirs, and Daenerys and Jon see no reason to correct them. Even though that’s not truly the reason, Daenerys has to admit it makes her feel safer to have them close to her heart all night long, and better, too, that any potential enemies know how well-guarded and cherished the children are. So when she hears people whispering that Jon sleeps with his hand on Longclaw, or that their direwolf sits sentry at the foot of their bed all night long waiting to rip out an intruder’s throat, or that Dany can summon Drogon in an instant with her thoughts, she encourages it. If her legacy is to be known as a queen who cherished her children close to madness, so be it. She gave up everything for the chance to give life to these delightful little people, and she wouldn’t want to be remembered without her love for Lyaella and Aemon, anyway.

That love swallows her whole. She simply can’t remember being so happy; she doesn’t think she ever was. Her and Jon’s past trauma burnt to ash the night Aemon entered the world, and with the weight of that trauma lifted from their shoulders, they share in a lightness different from any they had before it. Everything in the world feels simple and easy, and Dany often goes to bed with a belly sore from a day of laughter. She has everything her younger self never knew she was missing but felt the absence of every day: Jon, Lyaella, Aemon. She knows, when Rhae eventually joins them, that she’ll wonder how she ever lived without her, too, but right now, her heart is so full and complete that she can’t imagine how she could ever want or need anything more.

The flood of love she feels for her new baby is expected, but the deepening of her love for Jon is a pleasant, unexpected addition. It seems to grow day by day. She falls asleep each night with her arm stretched over the children curled between them, her fingers combing sleepily through his curls, or pulling softly at his beard, or stroking his arm…and she thinks, _I couldn’t love you any more than I do now. I couldn’t._

And then she wakes up, and she watches his soft, sleepy smile as he eases a comb through each of Lyaella’s sleep-tangled curls or as he sings and bounces their giggling son into the air, and she feels her heart split and swell, widen and writhe. She hoards any possible moment of free time she can find, and she spends it running her hands through his hair, kissing him, tasting his tongue and pressing her body against his and feeling his hardness— giving life to her suffocating affection. She burns for him. She always has. But sometimes, she thinks the ferocity of it might kill her.

Her love for her daughter grows, too. She had once worried about how she would manage having her love shared by two; she had feared it would mean less love for Lyaella and Aemon, like she could only love her children so much, and each additional child was another way that set amount of love had to be split and distributed. But it’s nothing like that at all. Like she had felt at Aemon’s birth, the love is doubled— and then tripled, and then quadrupled. She loves Lyaella even more than she did before. Seeing how sweet Lyaella is with her sibling only gives her yet another reason to adore her.

That sweetness is never quite so precious as it is in the mornings. Waking up is Daenerys’s favorite part of every day, followed closely by every moment that follows it. She finds it so strange sometimes to remember she had once wanted to kill herself; the deep despair she had felt during that time of her life is so far removed from the way she feels now that it might as well have been another person who felt it. Now she wants nothing more than to live. She ensures she takes care of herself better than she ever has before in the hopes that, with luck, she will be around for tens of thousands more mornings yet. She wants as many as she can get— as long as they are spent with her family.

She wakes every morning with a smile on her face, and this morning is no exception. She lazes in the warmth of the bed, enjoying the quiet sound of the balcony chimes singing in the early morning breeze. The first thing she feels isn’t loneliness, or fear, or the stress of an impossible burden: it’s the warmth of her son curled up against her, the softness of Lyaella’s sweet-smelling curls where they’re fanned across the pillow and brushing her face, the pleasant heat of Jon’s legs against her bare feet. Aemon is already waking; he shifts and coos sleepily, and when Dany lifts her heavy eyelids and looks down at him, she finds him already looking up at her. His face lights up with a brilliant smile as soon as her eyes meet his. He begins babbling _mamma_ happily, shifting closer to press against her for a hug, and she gathers him close and snuggles him. Her breasts are uncomfortably heavy, and her baby’s fond nuzzling and insistent babbling tell her he’s equally ready for his morning feed, but she takes a moment to kiss his dark, downy hair and breathe in the sweet scent of his scalp.

“Good morning, Aemon,” she whispers, and he babbles _mamma_ back at her in such a sweet voice that she can’t help but melt. She kisses his hair a final time and moves him back enough to reach for her dressing gown tie. As she pulls at it, he squirms and presses his dimpled hands against the mattress so he can push himself upright. He’s unsteady as he sits, and he sways a bit as he reaches for her. His soft hair is mussed in every direction, and as he smiles and bounces happily, his two— soon to be three— teeth peek at her. Dany gently grasps his little arm to hold him steady as she adjusts the pillows behind her, and once she’s leaning back against the headboard so she can nurse him upright, she pulls him up into her lap. It’s one of his alert mornings. When he’s still drowsy, he prefers to snuggle close to her in bed and nurse lying down, but on mornings like this, he likes to lie across her lap and study her face. Dany’s happy to look down at his, too. She bends her knees slightly and brings her legs up just enough to keep him at the right angle, and then she leans forward and kisses his smiling mouth gently. He squirms gleefully in her lap and laughs, and before she can straighten, he grasps her face and presses a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss to her chin. He smiles and smiles at her resulting laughter, and he touches her face gently, his touch sweet and affectionate. He pets her cheek, her nose, her chin, and then he holds his chubby hand to her lips and giggles, already anticipating the kiss she’ll press there. She kisses his palm, his round fingers, his chubby wrist— he’s squirming and giggling by the time she lowers his hand.

“You’re such a sweet boy, do you know that?” she whispers. His radiant smile tells her he does. She cradles him close to her heart in a brief hug, overcome with love for him. “You’re _my_ sweet boy.”

He coos softly as if he’s agreeing with her. Dany lowers him back into her lap and strokes his hair softly with one hand while she finishes undoing the tie of her dressing gown, and before she pulls it off her shoulders completely, she pokes a finger into his mouth gently and rubs over the spot his third tooth is emerging. He gnaws on her finger instinctively, and she sees his dark brow furrow with discomfort.

“Does it hurt less today?” she asks. She keeps her voice at a whisper, mindful of Lyaella and Jon still curled together on the other side of the bed. “My poor Aemon…it’s not fun, is it?”

He smiles at her cooing tone, all discomfort forgotten. Dany hopes that means the pain isn’t too bad. She shrugs her dressing gown off, and the chill of the morning air against her bare skin is thankfully short-lived. Her son snuggles against her quickly enough, latching on with an intensity that steals her breath for a short moment in time. The discomfort fades quickly enough, followed by a feeling of relief— and above that, most of all, love. Her milk lets down quickly after the long night, and she feels drowsy and content as she combs her fingers through his soft hair and studies his sweet face. He studies hers, too, gazing at her with a look leaking so much devotion and affection that Dany feels as all-powerful as R’hllor, as the Old Gods, as any and every god…

His hand idly caresses the scar at her left breast, as intrigued by the ridged texture of it as Lyaella had been when she was a nursing babe. His other holds tight to a section of her long hair flowing loose over her shoulders, his touch as fond as if he were holding a special blanket or toy. During the day, he often gets restless and tries to play while nursing, but in the mornings, he’s sweet, cuddly, and utterly indifferent to everything in the world but Dany. The moments like this she’d shared with her daughter are still seared deep into the center of her heart, and she knows this moment will one day be, too. Right then, so happy and whole with her baby, she’d happily have a dozen more children, just so she could fill her heart with hundreds more memories so tender and pure.

It’s reliable as the sun rising and setting: she gets desperate for a trip to the privy right as Aemon starts to drift off at her other breast, and at the same moment, Jon begins to rouse. He props up against the pillows and yawns, and with his eyes still shut, he reaches out. Dany uses her dressing gown sleeve to wipe gently at Aemon’s slightly parted lips as he snoozes, and then she passes him to his father. Jon brings him to his chest and lays him over his heart, his hand rubbing gentle circles against his back as continues to sleep. Aemon doesn’t so much as stir; he’s as used to the trade-off as they are. He melts into Jon and continues sleeping.

She’s careful not to disturb Lyaella as she leans over and kisses Jon. One kiss turns to three, and if it weren’t for the pressure in her bladder, she’d turn three to six. She resolves to squeeze those extras in throughout the day.

She goes to the privy, dresses, and returns to her family. Lyaella stirred while she was gone, but she doesn’t seem ready to wake yet. She’s moved from her spot between Jon and Dany to lie across Jon’s chest, her cheek resting sweetly against Aemon’s back. They’re holding hands, too, though that’s the norm: they probably spend half the day with their hands entwined.

There’s only one thing that could pull Lyaella from Aemon and Jon, and that’s Dany. She joins them on the bed, and Lyaella immediately lifts her face and turns to look for her. Her resulting smile is brilliant and touching; she reaches eagerly for Dany, and Dany is more than happy to curl her body around Lyaella’s and hold her tight. Lyaella sinks into her embrace and yawns into her dress.

“Good morning, sweetling,” Dany murmurs. She kisses her sweet-smelling hair. She feels Jon’s foot caress against her leg, and a moment later, he reaches over Lyaella to touch Dany’s hair. She hears the words _good morning_ even if he hasn’t said them. She catches his hand and kisses his palm to say it back.

“Morning, Mamma,” Lyaella yawns. “I dreamt about Sunshine and Moonbloom.”

She’s in the habit now of updating Jon and Dany on what her dreams were like each morning, but on the nights she doesn’t have nightmares, she rarely remembers what she dreams of. She usually makes something up on those days, lies involving them, or her animals, or their dragons, or her friends. Dany is thankful for every lie. If she’s got to make something up, that means there’s nothing she’s being haunted by.

“How lovely,” she whispers. “What do you think Aemon dreamed of?”

“Maybe…Frostfire and mashed figs,” she muses, and Dany laughs. “What did you dream of, _Muver_?”

“My family,” Dany says at once. She doesn’t know if it’s true or not, but she woke up smiling, so it must be.

“Oh, that’s a _great_ one!” Lyaella says. Her smile tilts her words up.

“The best,” Daenerys affirms, kissing Lyaella’s hair once more.

She holds her daughter close as she falls into a light slumber again. She dozes herself, stirring to the sound of Jon whispering fondly to Aemon and their son’s responding giggles, and later to Aemon’s offended wails protesting the cool morning air as Jon changes his swaddling clothes, and again to the sound of Jon singing to him. Aemon’s wails turn to affectionate coos and babbles as soon as Jon sings. Dany strokes her fingers through Lyaella’s curls bit by bit every time she wakes, gently working each tangle free as her daughter sleeps. By the time Aemon’s giggles become so lively and loud that Lyaella decides to wake, too, her hair tumbles brilliantly down her back in shining spirals of silver. As soon as she sits up, Aemon dives for her arms, his babbles growing to gleeful shrieks. Lyaella wraps him in a hug and giggles sleepily as he presses a sweet, messy kiss to her cheek, her forehead, her nose—

“You’re eating my nose!” Lyaella laughs. She gently moves Aemon back by his shoulders, but he doesn’t seem deterred by it, probably because his sister is still smiling brightly. He folds forward and tucks his face sweetly against her neck, happily babbling ‘ _a-uh’_ as he twists his chubby fingers in her soft hair.

“Ae-mon,” Lyaella coos back, and Aemon giggles at that. He kicks his socked feet happily and tightens his fingers in her hair, but not enough to hurt her. He’s finally beginning to learn how to gauge the strength of his own grip. Dany and Jon watch with a soft smile as Aemon presses another kiss just beneath her chin. Ever since he learned how to ‘give kisses’ (though they’re truly less a kiss and more a press of his open mouth to skin), he kisses them all day long. During meals, during playtime, during council meetings, at bed, at bathtime…his affection is effusive when he’s with them, but the same can’t be said for anyone else. Lyaella at this age was bright and affectionate with anyone who treated her kindly, but Aemon would sooner bite his own toes right off with his three little teeth than be placed into someone else’s arms or even have them in his face. It goes beyond shyness; Dany doesn’t think her son is shy at all. She just thinks he is very particular about those he shares his true self with. No one in the world knows the Aemon that they know, though anyone can get a quick glimpse of it if they just watch the way he is with his sister.

Lyaella and Aemon giggle and play together, taking turns popping out from behind Lyaella’s ivory baby blanket to surprise one another. Dany crawls over to sit between Jon’s legs while the children play, and as he combs her hair with his fingers, she shuts her eyes and focuses on the feeling of his warmth and the sound of their little ones. If she focuses hard enough…and relaxes totally…

She smiles, and her chest floods with heat. She turns her face and kisses Jon’s bicep as the smooth strength of _him_ mingles sleepily with her own mind. In this quiet place, they can share whatever they like in private, and they do. He braids her hair innocently and says nothing aloud while showing her, quite vividly, what he’d like to do to her later. She rubs absently at his thighs as she shares the same. They feel each other’s level of arousal and switch their thoughts when they must, though a thread of desire weaves through everything they share. It’s impossible for Dany to think of how much she loves him without it being there.

Their minds reluctantly peel apart when Aemon begins to cry. He scoots and crawls to the end of the bed as Lyaella climbs off it, his arms reaching out for her. Dany quickly lunges forward and grasps him around the middle to stop him from trying to clamber down after his sister.

“She’s just going to the privy,” Dany comforts Aemon. He looks distressed and confused, his violet eyes teeming with tears and his lips trembling as he reaches towards her. Lyaella hops back over to the end of the bed and leans up to rub her nose sweetly against Aemon’s. His responding laugh is watery. He reaches out and wraps his chubby arms around her neck at once and clings.

“No, no,” Lyaella tells him softly. She pries his arms off, and he begins to wail. Lyaella hands her own baby blanket over for Aemon to hold. It helps a bit, but tears still roll down his flushed cheeks, and he looks utterly betrayed. Lyaella gently guides his arms up so that he’s holding her blanket in front of his face, and after popping out and saying ‘boo!’ enough times to get him giggling again, she tiptoes out of the room when the blanket is still up. Aemon lowers it with an anticipatory giggle, and then he registers her absence. He looks around the room, his head flying from left to right, and then he looks up at Dany, his expression almost angry. She has to keep herself from laughing.

“She’ll be back,” Dany assures him again. She kisses his chubby, tear-drenched cheek, and then she kisses the soft darkness of his hair. She smooths it down again with her fingers afterwards. “Then you can go on playing.”

He turns to face her and reaches out to pull at the ties holding her dress closed, seeking comfort and closeness. He babbles _mammamammamamma,_ his request sweet more than demanding. Dany knows him well: he’s not hungry, just bored, and he’ll undoubtedly roll right off her lap as soon as his sister returns. She pulls his fingers from her ties as he begins to tug them loose. She kisses his hand and then gently pokes his soft belly, sending him into immediate chortles of ticklish laughter.

“You’ll squirm away right as I get you settled, you know you will,” she teases him. He grabs her hand and brings it back to his belly after she stops tickling him, and she’s laughing along with him as he falls into full belly-laughs. His joy is infectious. He clearly thinks it’s a game after that; he starts pulling at her dress ties and then waiting for her to tickle him, and after he’s undone the lacing three separate times, Jon takes mercy on Dany’s tired fingers.

“Aemon, come see me, you silly thing,” Jon laughs. Aemon twists eagerly in Jon’s direction and bounces in Dany’s arms until she sets him back on the mattress. He crawls and scoots over to Jon, and as soon as Jon’s tossed him up into the air gently, he begins laughing again. His joyous peals of laughter fill the bedchambers quickly enough. “ _I_ need the privy, too. Can _I_ leave? Can I go?”

Aemon’s offended grunt sounds close to a growl. He latches his arms around Jon’s neck and presses a kiss to his shoulder. Jon’s laughing as he pats his back.

“You know you’ve got a reputation as a serious baby,” he tells their son, his voice impossibly soft and sweet. “You’re truly tricking the Seven Kingdoms with that facade. They say you were ‘born a man-grown’ and 'born a king’, but I think you were born a mummer. How can you be this sweet and silly here and give such spectacular glares elsewhere?”

Aemon coos _dadadadada_ and pets Jon’s curls, his touch as loving as it is clumsy. He presses a wet kiss to Jon’s beard afterwards, and Jon tickles the bottom of his socked feet until he’s shrieking in delight.

“You’re not going to let me go, are you?” Jon teases him. Aemon latches his arms tighter around Jon’s neck and babbles bossily, his response as clear as if he’s parted his lips and spoken.

“Oh, all right. I’ll take you with me.” As if that’s not the routine nearly every morning.

They all meet again in the bathing chambers. Dany helps Lyaella dress for the day while Aemon crawls about at their feet, getting into anything and everything he can get his hands on. He finds a comb and brings it up to his own hair, trying his best to comb at it like he sees his sister and parents doing, but all he manages to do is rub the flat end of the comb against his hair. Lyaella acts as if he’s done something magical anyway. She praises him and sits beside him so he can ‘comb’ her hair, and his eyes sparkle as he pets her hair with the end of the comb. He won’t be separated from it after that. He combs Jon’s curls as he carries him down to breakfast, he tries to comb Dany’s hair the entire time she’s coaxing him into eating creamed carrots, and when they journey to the dragon pit, he occupies himself by ‘combing’ Frostfire’s scales. Frostfire curls around him protectively and sits there rumbling contentedly the entire time. When they go to the audience chamber later that day, Ghost sits patiently beside him and lets the baby brush his fur for as long as he likes. He even tries to comb Dany’s hair as he nurses, but he finally grows disinterested in the task and lets the comb slip from his drowsy grip as he melts against his mother.

Dany and Jon attend to a multitude of tiny issues — a couple bug-infested bags of grain on a recent shipment, a few complaints about an ‘erratic fiddler’ who plays nonstop in the square at midnight each night, and quite a few requests for monetary travel assistance in order to visit relatives— and a few bigger ones, the most alarming being an elderly woman reporting the screaming and beating she hears coming from a couple next door nearly every night.

“I told a soldier the night before last,” she tells them. Her eyes are a watery green full of permanent concern as if she’s spent every decade of her life worrying. “They said they couldn’t do anything because that’s his wife, but that didn’t sound right to me. Seemed to me you’d care.”

Lyaella has been reading curled against Ghost, but Dany sees her lower her book at those words. She’s clearly been listening carefully.

“That’s bad,” she tells them, her silver brow furrowed. “He hurts his _wife_?”

Despite having come across plenty of recounts of violence against women in books— particularly books about their family— the thought baffles and disturbs her. She looks between Jon and Dany like she can’t make sense of the idea. Dany loves her for that.

“We do care,” Dany assures the woman. “Come sit with us and tell us more. We’ll hold the queue for a bit.”

They keep an empty chair beside theirs for occasions such as this, when matters are brought to them that require lengthy conversation and inspection. The old woman seems hesitant and sheepish as she approaches them, but Lyaella smiles at her so sweetly that some of her hesitancy seems to fall away. Lyaella rises onto her knees and twists her torso so that the back of her head is to the woman, showcasing the braids Dany wove into her hair earlier.

“Do you like my hair?” Lyaella asks the woman. “It’s new! It’s a flower, see? My mamma did it.”

“It’s _beautiful_ , Princess Lyaella,” the woman gushes.

“I’m reading about boats. There are galleys, longships, cogs, carracks, whalers, and swan ships. Do you have a boat?”

“No,” the woman says, smiling. “I’d like to, one day.”

Lyaella perks up. “Do you want one of ours?”

Dany and Jon suppress laughter. The woman laughs, too. “No, thank you, Princess. That’s very kind and generous to offer.”

“I was born on a boat,” Lyaella continues. “It was storming bad! It was a…carrack, I think, but I don’t know…it’s broken up now and it sleeps at the bottom of the sea. In…” she turns and looks at Jon, and he mouths _Blackwater Bay._ “In Blackwater Bay.”

“Oh yes,” the woman says, her tone soft as tones often are when speaking to the princess. “You’ve heard the songs written about that ship?”

“Yes, I like them! I like ‘Moonglow Girl’, too, it was for me when I was little and three,” Lyaella shares. As if she’s _so_ much older now; Dany hides her smile against Aemon’s hair as she leans down to kiss him. “The Golden Dragon took Big Maester Aemon to the Night’s Watch. It was an old ship…I don’t know where it is now. My _fawder—_ father— he was at the Night’s Watch. He was the king—”

“Lord Commander,” Jon corrects gently.

“Yes, that, but I don’t think he ever sawed the Golden Dragon…did you, Father?”

Jon shakes his head. Lyaella could— and would— go on talking for as long as the woman was entertaining it, but Dany needs to find out more about the couple. She beckons Lyaella over to her side as she switches Aemon to her other breast, and once Lyaella’s walked over to lean against her mother, Dany turns and kisses her forehead.

“Let us talk with her so we can find out about the husband and wife, okay, sweetling?” Dany murmurs. Lyaella’s gray eyes meet Dany’s. She nods obediently. “Why don’t you show Aemon the pictures in your book?”

She brightens. “Okay! I show him swan ships, they are _very_ pretty.”

She moves her little chair over and wedges it between Jon and Dany’s so she can hold her book up for Aemon to see as he nurses, giving her parents an opportunity to speak with the woman. The woman sits at Dany’s other side and tells them where the couple lives, the typical severity of the fighting and how often it occurs, and the times the woman has had to go to the sickhouse for injuries.

“He’s always been violent,” she tells them softly. She glances over at Lyaella, and Dany can tell she doesn’t want her to hear what she’s about to say from the way she lowers her voice. “His wife gave him five daughters over the past seven years, and each one only made him angrier…”

“He wanted a son?” Dany guesses.

The woman nods. She fiddles nervously with a rough-cut seven-pointed star pendant at her neck.

“He finally got one. But the boy…he wasn’t born right. He was very ill, and he can’t hear a thing— he’s deaf as a stone. And he blames her— his wife. That’s when things started to get very bad.”

Dany and Jon share a quick look. She knows he’s thinking about the same thing she is: the happy babe they saw just last week, who was perfectly healthy— except for the fact that she couldn’t hear anything.

“And it’s a son? Not a girl? We just saw a babe recently with the same ailment,” Jon says. “A little girl.”

“This is a boy. His name is Alberich,” the woman says. “His mother’s labor was difficult and long; the boy was half-dead when he came. They had already sent someone to fetch a septon to prepare the babe for burial when he finally cried, but it was weak, and he never quite recovered. He wouldn’t suckle well no matter how many wet nurses tried, and he stayed very small because of it. His mother expected him to die each night. She would sit by his cradle and pray that his death be gentle and merciful all night long.”

Dany finds herself clutching Aemon closer, her heart twisting in her chest. She takes a moment to relish in each thrum of his little heart, each strong suck at her breast, each inhale and each exhale. She can’t imagine it. Though she’s lived through the loss of a suffering babe once, that despair is as faraway and hazy as all the sorrow that came before it. She can barely remember being that woman or feeling that emptiness. But she can feel her _fullness_ now, and the agony she would experience if she suddenly lost it is completely unfathomable. Just the thought of waking in the morning and reaching for her son, only to find him still and cold…

She can’t. She can’t even think of it.

“How is he now?” Jon asks. His words are thick, and he clears his throat gruffly afterwards. He reaches across Lyaella and touches one of Aemon’s little socked feet, smiling briefly as Aemon kicks against his palm.

“His health is getting better, but they realized he can’t hear. It set her husband off again…I’m afraid for her. She is a sweet girl.”

“Don’t be afraid,” Dany says. “We are going to handle it by nightfall. I have one more question, and then you may leave: do you know the name of the soldier you spoke with? The one who told you we couldn’t do anything.”

It doesn’t sit well with her. The woman tells them she’s not sure of his name— but that she thinks he’s a northman— and that sits _terribly_ with Jon. He’s quiet and broody the rest of the afternoon, and even Aemon and Lyaella’s cutest antics only earn a soft, distracted smile. They go straight from the audience chamber to the small council chamber, and there, Jon summons Commander Regin. He speaks quietly and gravely with him on the balcony while Dany gives Red Fly and Blue Rat instructions on where to find and arrest the man the elderly woman informed them about. They meet again at the council table.

“Has each issue been dealt with?” Ser Davos inquires. He’s bouncing Aemon on his knees; he’s one of the few people outside of Jon, Dany, and Lyaella that Aemon enjoys being held by (one of three, in fact), but even still, Aemon must be in the right mood for it. He is today: he’s clapping his hands gleefully, generously amused by Davos. “Yes,” Jon and Dany chorus.

Lyaella looks up from the letter she’s reading. “Is she going to be okay, Mamma?”

“The woman who was being mistreated?”

“Yes.”

Dany reaches toward the center of the council table where Lyaella is sprawled and pulls her off of it and into her lap. She kisses her cheek. “Yes. She’s going to be fine.” She taps Lyaella’s letter. “What did Gendry say?”

“It’s _Awa_ ,” she corrects.

“Ah, I thought this one was from Gendry. What has _Awa_ said?”

“She says she loves me, and she has a special room for me when we visit, and she miss me and Aemon, and…” Lyaella trails off. She lifts the letter to reference it again. “And she wants me to train with Daddy so he’s not lazy.”

Dany laughs. She tickles Lyaella and smiles at her tinkling giggles and delighted squirms. “Daddy is not lazy. He trains all the time. Tell her _that_.”

“Okay, Mamma,” Lyaella smiles. She says it with such reverence and love that Dany knows, without a doubt, that her little daughter would do anything in the world for her. Anything she asked. That dedication is deeply mutual.

Later that night, after a day packed with nonstop duties and activity, they take a walk through the Memorial Gardens. Aemon sits in Jon’s arms and looks up at the darkening sky, his eyes wide with wonder at the sight of the brilliant sunset. The clouds burn a deep, vivid orange, and the sky surrounding the sinking sun is blood-red. As they approach the temple, with its torches blazing bright along every wall, Aemon rests his cheek against Jon’s shoulder and smiles.

They stop in the domed, echoing entryway of the temple. Jon pulls one of the thin sticks of birchwood from a short vase made of red glass. He holds the thin piece of wood in the flame of a tall black candle that burns day in and day out, holding Aemon back from grabbing the flame with his other arm; when the birchwood catches, he carries the flame two steps to the left and lights one of the thousands of ruby votive candles lining the wall. He then steps back over and leans in so Aemon can grab his own stick. His chubby hands grasp a handful of at least twenty; Dany bites back a laugh as she reaches in and gently pries all but one from his fingers. He bounces excitedly in Jon’s grasp as Jon brings him close to the black candle. His father guides his hand towards the fire carefully, holding the stick there until it lights, and then he carries Aemon over and helps him light the candle beside Jon’s. Lyaella goes next, confident and needing no assistance: she’s as familiar with this as riding on horseback. Dany chooses her stick last, and once she’s lit the last candle in the third row, she takes Lyaella’s hand and walks at Jon’s side into the inner sanctum. The tiles underfoot are shiny as a looking glass and black as obsidian; the fiery light streaming in from the multitude of triangular windows made up of red, orange, and yellow glass refract off the floors so that one almost feels they’re walking in a sunset sky. Jon and Dany go to the front of the sanctum and sink onto one of the hundreds of black floor cushions. Lyaella kneels beside them, and Aemon coos quietly in Jon’s arms. Dany touches Jon’s hand and weaves her thoughts with his long enough to share a prayer with him, and then they separate and speak.

“May Aemon and I play? _Please,_ Daddy? _Please,_ Mamma?” Lyaella begs, her tone still hushed.

“Yes,” Dany permits. The sanctum is their favorite place to play. The shiny floors and littering of soft cushions make it ideal for a variety of games. Last night, Aemon learned that if he lies atop a cushion and hugs it, Lyaella can pull him across the tile by the edge of the cushion. That occupied both him and Lyaella for a full hour. “Don’t leave the sanctum, and don’t go into the sacristy.”

“Yes, Mamma! I won’t!”

“ _Mammamammamamma!”_ Aemon adds. He’s so excited he’s trembling. Jon sets Aemon onto the tile, holds his hands, and helps him stand. With Jon’s support, he takes a few unsteady, wobbly steps towards the nearest cushion, and then he collapses onto it and plants his face into it, his arms wrapping around it gleefully. “ _A-uh! A-uh!_ ”

“We’re dragons, A, and we’re _flying!_ ” Lyaella exclaims. She leans over, grabs the edge of the cushion, and begins walking backwards as quickly as she can without falling over, dragging Aemon along the slick floor. Aemon’s delighted giggles reverberate through the sacred space.

They stay in sight at all times, but soon, they’re far enough away that they’re out of earshot. Dany rises to move to Jon’s lap right as he reaches to pull her into it. She turns to face him and straddles him, her ears tuned to every sound coming from their children just as his gaze is. Together, they’re paying complete attention, even if half of their individual focus is on each other. They’re complete that way.

She loops her arms around his neck and shifts closer to him. His hands rest naturally at her hips; his grip tightens as the close press of their bodies becomes as wicked as can be allowed in this sacred space amongst their children. He presses his face against her breasts and kisses over her heart. She feels the curve of his smile as she tugs at his curls. Here is where they can speak of things they’ve noticed but haven’t yet shared with others.

“Before…with that baby…”

“I know,” Jon agrees. “Two could just be a coincidence, but if there are more…and…”

He stops. Dany waits, but she doesn’t have to. She cradles his head to her heart as they twist together. He shows her what he means, but it’s hazy and fragmented and confused—the remnants of a dream. She sees hazy outlines…Jon, perhaps, and Aemon? Or, no— not Aemon. A little girl… _our daughter,_ Jon thinks. _Look at her._ Dany looks. She and Jon watch together as she smiles and gestures. She’s working on something with Jon out in the courtyard, but it’s too hazy for Dany to make out what it is. Dany sinks further into the dream, trying to absorb every detail she can about their daughter, her heart greedy. She’s so tuned into watching Rhae’s beautiful face that she herself startles at the sudden sound of ringing bells. Jon twists and turns towards the bell tower at once, following the sound. But their daughter continues smiling and working. And smiling and working…

 _Oh,_ Dany thinks, and various comments Lyaella has made over the past year flow between them. This time, they are colored with different meaning. Dany feels her heart inch down. _Oh…_

His mind reverses through images, pulling Dany back with him. They watch Rhae laughing and smiling again. She’s beautiful, brilliant, perfect…

 _If it’s true, it doesn’t matter,_ they decide. What matters is her health and her happiness, and as they watch her, neither seem compromised. _But_ why _matters. Especially if it’s something affecting the children of our realm._

They stay close together for a couple minutes longer, and then they separate and turn their full attention back to their children. They’ve drifted back near their parents now, and they’re fully involved in stacking the cushions to make a tower. Aemon still can’t stand on his own and certainly can’t lift the cushions, but he’s well-equipped to grab the cushion he thinks Lyaella ought to add next and babble bossily until she does. Once it’s as tall as it can get, Lyaella and Aemon ‘breathe fire’ at it and reach forward to send it crashing to the tile. They repeat this same process a dozen more times before it’s time to return home, and by that point, both are so tired they sleep in Jon and Dany’s arms the entire walk back to Rhaella’s Fortress.

As they settle down to sleep, Dany gazes at her children and finds the greatest truth of all: _there is nothing better than this_. This bed is her red door; this family is her home. It’s lived inside her all along.


	8. Lost in Soft Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU for your comments last chapter! 💞 Now that I've got this chapter written and posted I'm hoping to spend time tomorrow catching up on replies. Thank you for reading!

I.

Oftentimes, she lets her friends win their races. But today, Lyaella decides she’s not going to.

She likes to make them happy— and she doesn’t like how mopey the boys get when they lose— but they were unkind to Nona earlier during lunch, and no matter how quickly Nona got over it, Lyaella hasn’t. They teased her and called her _Fat Nona,_ and so now Lyaella is going to call them losers. And she won’t even have to say a word to do it.

Cow One is a born winner, and Lyaella is, too, when she wants to be. And she wants to be right now. She tucks her knees tight to Cow One’s side and flattens herself to him. She nestles her chin against his soft mane, and she kisses one of the bells braided there. Her eyes never leave the ‘finish line’: a wrought-iron bench at the end of this particular path inside the Memorial Garden. She can hear Temmo, Akko, and Rogier’s horses pounding the stones behind her. But they’re _behind her,_ and that’s where they’re going to stay. Victories shouldn’t go to people who call their friends mean things, and she knows that for certain. 

“ _Jikagon, dōna valītsos!”_ she murmurs to Cow One, and his hooves beat the ground harder. The wind tears and tangles Lyaella’s hair, ripping strands free from her braids, but she doesn’t care. Only one thing matters, and that’s winning. She hears Temmo’s horse gaining on Cow One, but she squeezes her thighs and urges Cow One on; he listens happily and goes even faster, moving so quickly now that Lyaella’s eyes stream with tears from the sharp wind. “ _Jikagon, jikagon, jikagon_!”

The bench is close enough now that Lyaella can make out the words engraved into the back of it. Temmo lets out of a scream of rage, and that’s how she knows she’s won. She’s smiling as Cow One barrels past the bench. She tightens her legs and holds steady so she can throw her arms up in the air in victory, just because she knows that will _really_ make Temmo angry. He’s cursing loudly behind her, and that makes her laugh. She steers Cow One to the left, veering off onto a familiar path leading towards the clearing her brother is in, and Cow One gradually slows to a trot.

“That’s what he gets,” she tells Cow One. Her heart is pounding, but it’s from excitement. She shoves her hair out of her eyes impatiently. “This is the fifth time he called Nona ‘Fat Nona’ this moonturn, and it hurts her feelings. I told him to stop a _lot_ of times.”

Cow One huffs in agreement. He tosses his mane and makes his bells sing. Lyaella pats his spotty neck.

“You did a good job,” she praises him. He’s just the best horse in the whole world, and she tells him that all the time. She owns the sky on Moonbloom, but she owns the ground on Cow One. “They’re gonna be angry with us, but don’t worry. I’ll never let them hurt you.”

She has her sword always now. Father and Mother said she could carry it with her whenever she wanted once she got big enough to ride Moonbloom (when she turned six), and she’s kept it with her most every day since then, and she’s nearly seven now. But she would never hurt someone— unless they tried to hurt one of her animals or her brother or her friends. Akko once tried to hit Aemon during a game, and she had grabbed the hilt before she even knew she was. She remembers how the engraved scales on the hilt felt against her sweaty palm, how her heart had been pounding. How her eyes had been chained to every move Akko made and how her fingers tightened all on their own. How her arm started to unsheathe her sword as if she were training with Father or Arya…like she might really strike him. It had frightened her. She got upset telling Father about it later that night, but he held her in his arms and told her it was good. _We protect our family,_ he said. _We protect our hearts. You were watchful, not violent. You didn’t hurt anyone. But you would’ve protected Brother if you had to, and yourself. And I’m so_ very _proud of you for that, Ly._

He made her feel proud, too. Lyaella didn’t feel afraid of herself anymore after that. She protects her friends, and her animals, and anyone who needs protecting. Just like Mother and Father do.

And sometimes protecting the ones she loves gets to be fun. Like now. She doesn’t even stop her amused smile as Temmo, Akko, and Rogier come bounding down the trail behind her. She doesn’t care how pouty they get.

“You _cheated_!” Temmo accuses at once. He brings his horse level with Cow One, and his face twitches with anger at the sight of her smile. “You did something to the path! You made my horse slow!”

“No,” Lyaella says. She turns her eyes back towards the approaching clearing. She smiles at the sight of Brother’s hair. He’s picking arrows up from the tall grass around the softwood target, and his instructor is talking and talking and talking. He talks a lot, even though Aemon isn’t listening most the time. But Aemon always listens to her. Lyaella can’t wait to tell him about the race, and that thought fills her with even more reckless smugness. She looks over at Temmo and meets his dark eyes. Strands of his long hair are plastered to his sweaty forehead, and his warm skin is flushed with anger.

“Your horse’s rider made him slow,” Lyaella tells Temmo. She shrugs. “Sorry about that.”

She strokes Cow One’s mane, and he picks up to a quicker trot, leaving Temmo’s scowling face behind. Emmati comes from the north path on her own horse— a beautiful black mare Lyaella secretly named Inky Hooves— and she smiles at Lyaella.

“Well? Did you win, Princess?” she yells across the clearing.

She’s meant to be giving them horse-riding lessons, but mostly she just lets them play. Their time is almost up, anyway: Mother and Father are in the temple meeting with the Priestess, and once they are done, they’re coming to collect them. Lyaella decides to get a few more jabs in before then. She brings Cow One to a stop and slides down into the soft grass. Temmo, Akko, and Rogier are talking angrily as they dismount and stamp their way over to Emmati, too.

“Yes, I won,” Lyaella answers Emmati.

“SHE DIDN’T! SHE CHEATED—”

“You hush,” Emmati scolds Temmo at once. “The princess did no such thing. How could she?”

“She tacked the path—!”

“I did not!” Lyaella scowls. “I would never! I just won, and you just lost.” She senses Aemon approaching, and she turns her back on Temmo entirely. She smiles at her brother, and his face glows with a smile. He shoulders his small bow and bounces over to her, his instructor trailing along behind him tiredly.

“Aella!” Aemon beams. He shrugs his bow down so it slides down the length of his arm, and then he holds it up. “Watch me! Look! Look at me!”

He reaches out towards the instructor. The instructor fumbles for one of the small arrows in the quiver at his back, and then he passes it to Aemon. Aemon positions it on his bow, turns, and fires towards the target. He misses the middle by a little bit, but that doesn’t matter: Lyaella is so proud, anyway. She sweeps him into a hug.

“Good job! And I won my race,” she shares, utterly ignoring Temmo’s whines of _no she didn’t! She didn’t!_ echoing behind her.

“Good job to you, too!” Aemon praises. He sounds proud of her, and that makes her smile even more. He steps back from their hug and looks at Temmo with annoyed eyes. “Be quiet now, Temmo.”

Temmo’s face darkens, and Akko laughs.

“Ha!” he taunts. “The little prince tells you what to do!”

“He doesn’t,” Temmo snaps. “No one tells me what to do!”

“I sayed ‘be quiet now’,” Aemon repeats. He’s looking at Temmo like Temmo is spectacularly stupid, and to be fair, he’s acting like it right now. Thinking Lyaella would put tacks on the road…as if she would ever hurt Cow One or any other horse! She would rather tack her own feet.

“Let’s play nicely,” Emmati says, but it’s in the sweet, soft voice people use to talk to Aemon. They don’t take him seriously. He’s little and adorable, that’s true, because he’s only three. But he’s not stupid at all. Just like Lyaella’s not stupid, either, and some people still talk to her that way. She knows it’s from sweetness, but sometimes it makes her feel frustrated.

Emmati turns to Aemon’s archery instructor. “Gideon, we should clean up. His and Her Grace will be back soon.”

Aemon’s instructor looks back at the targets he set up and their picnic mess. He nods. 

“I’ll help,” Emmati tells him. She looks back at the kids. “You lot stay here in the clearing.”

Lyaella’s not sure the adults should be walking away from them when the boys are so angry, but she reminds herself that she’s Queen Daenerys and King Jon’s daughter, and she’s too brave to be afraid of silly pouting boys.

“Okay, we’ll stay here, Emmati,” Lyaella promises. She takes Aemon’s hand. “Right, A?”

Aemon nods, but his eyes don’t leave Temmo. Lyaella squeezes his hand gently.

“Don’t worry about him,” she whispers lowly in Valyrian. Aemon’s purple eyes meet hers. “He’s mad because I beat him in the race.”

“Why?” Aemon asks her.He furrows his brow. “Races are for fun.”

“Because he doesn’t like losing. But he called Nona ‘Fat Nona’ again, so I beat him,” she explains, still in Valyrian.

“Stop,” Akko complains. He glares at them. “Speak Dothraki or the Common Tongue.”

“The Common Tongue,” Rogier requests eagerly. He hates when Lyaella, Temmo, and Akko speak in Dothraki as much as they all hate it when she and Aemon speak in Valyrian.

“No,” Aemon tells them, and then he looks back at Lyaella. “Tell Mamma he been mean to Nona.”

“I will. But I also showed him that mean people don’t win,” she says firmly. “Then he said I cheated.”

“You're not a cheater!” Aemon says at once. His face clouds over. He looks insulted. “That’s a lie!” He faces Temmo again. He changes to Dothraki. “My sister never cheats!”

“She did! She did cheat!” Temmo persists. Lyaella knows he’s really just embarrassed to lose to her. She’s a little younger and a lot smaller than him, and she knows people think she’s sweet and tiny and delicate…but she’s a good rider. She is. Just because she lets them win sometimes doesn’t mean she’s not.

“It’s okay, Temmo,” Akko says. He looks smug, but Lyaella isn’t sure why. “We can tell on her for cheating.”

“No!” Aemon defends her. “Mamma knows! Daddy knows! She never cheats!”

He’s right. Mother and Father won’t think she cheated, and they won’t be angry with her. She doesn’t understand. She watches Temmo, Akko, and Rogier back up. They’re smirking, but she can’t figure out why. They step back to a pile of stones near a building site at the edge of the clearing…

“What are they _doing_?” Aemon asks, his nose scrunched up like he’s smelled something nasty. Lyaella shrugs uneasily.

She soon understands. The boys gather as many of the stones as they can hold, and then they start walking in circles, dropping some every few steps…Lyaella feels her insides grow cold like she’s just swallowed a too-big mouthful of iced milk.

“Stop!” she says at once. Her lungs tighten. She feels panicky. “Stop it!”

“We’ll tell _Him,”_ Akko taunts. “Your Great Other. This is how we call him, isn’t it? Your circles. That’s what you told Temmo.”

She can’t even feel angry right now that Temmo told Akko about her ice circles because she’s so panicky. She doesn’t know if the ice circles will work if they’re made with stones instead of body parts, but she doesn’t want to test it. She feels her tummy clench like she’s going to be sick. She doesn’t decide to run, but she is, anyway…she runs across the field and gets in front of Akko, stopping him from walking and dropping another stone.

“Stop!” she orders again. “It’s not a game! It’s not funny! Stop it!”

Akko is a lot older than her. He’s thirteen on his name day, and strong, and Lyaella knows— even with her sword drawn— she probably can’t make him stop. She feels her eyes burn. She turns from Akko and grabs Temmo’s hand and tries to pry the stone from it, but he snatches his hand away. His dark eyes bore coldly into hers; he looks like he hates her. That makes her feel even worse.

“You _cheated_ ,” he tells her. His words are like a bite. “You can’t beat me. I am a Dothraki. You’re just a little girl.”

“I’m a princess,” Lyaella corrects, but she doesn’t sound like one. Her voice is shivering. “It’s not funny to make ice circles. Stop. You’ve got to, please, you can’t, if He— it’s not funny! It’s not games! Temmo, don’t!”

Temmo sneers at her. “Are you going to _cry_? It’s not real. I already told you that so many times. There’s no such thing as ice circles.”

“There is,” Lyaella insists. Her vision grows blurry. Her hand has found the hilt of her sword; she shivers at the feeling of the texture of the scales. “There is, and you can’t make one. You can’t, Temmo.” _I can’t let you. I can’t. He’ll kill Brother and I. He’ll get us._

He looks down at her hand. He laughs. “You’re going to hit me with that? Akko, she’s going to hit me with her sword.”

Akko’s laugh is booming. “And the little prince is going to…what? Shoot me? You don’t have an arrow, and you’re, what? One? Go suckle your mother.”

“I’m _tree_ ,” Aemon corrects, and Lyaella’s head flies in the direction of her brother, her heart plummeting. He’s moved: he’s standing in front of Akko now, and he’s very, very mad. Maybe only Lyaella can tell; he doesn’t show his anger on his face for everyone to see like she does, but Lyaella can see it. His eyes are narrower and his gaze is scary. He’s only a third of Akko’s height, and he looks so little in front of him…Lyaella forgets what she’s doing and hurries over to him quickly, worried he’s going to do something and that Akko will do something back. Something to hurt him. She pulls her brother to her side as soon as she’s there, her heart racing in her chest.

“Aella sayed _stop!_ ” Aemon tells Akko.

“I heard her,” Akko snaps. “We’re just playing with her, and you can’t order me around.”

Lyaella shakes her head at once. “That’s not playing! That’s mean! Like calling Nona ‘Fat Nona’ was mean, too! And Brother can order you around if he likes because he’s the prince, and you better _stop_ before we tell on you! I’ll tell my mother and father!” Lyaella threatens. She feels angry now. Being worried for Brother got rid of all her fear about their stupid stones. “I’m never playing with you ever again!”

“I don’t want to play with a stupid little girl anyway,” Akko says. It’s so mean. Lyaella doesn’t even know what to say back. Nobody has ever been mean like that to her before.

“I’m not stupid,” she says. She’s so surprised that someone thinks she is. No one has ever called her that before. “You’re just angry that you lost—”

“I _didn’t lose—_ oh, what are _you_ going to do with that?” Akko demands, looking now at Aemon. He laughs. Lyaella glances down at Aemon; he’s got one of the building stones in his hand. “Throw it at me? Can babies even throw something that heavy?”

“He’s _not_ a baby!” Lyaella defends. “And you don’t talk to him that way!”

“No,” Aemon tells him. His face is very calm. “I’m not hitting you.” He glances to the other side of the clearing for a second, and then he lifts the stone up so it’s level with his eye, and then he rears his hand back…

“ _A_ ,” Lyaella starts to scold, but Aemon doesn’t throw the stone. Instead, he tightens his fingers around it and slams it against the back of his own head. On purpose.

“What…?” Akko says, and then he starts to laugh.

Aemon wails worse than Lyaella has ever heard. Lyaella gathers him in her arms and pulls him to her chest, her heart pounding with fear. He’s wailing like he’s _dying._ She touches his night-hair gently, feeling for the dampness of blood, so afraid he’s hurt himself terribly…and Akko keeps _laughing…_ Lyaella twists to look at him, furious, her hand finding her sword again…

But then his laughter breaks off. Something across the clearing has caught his eye. Horror cascades over his face.

“Aemon?!” It’s Father and Mother.

The boys panic. Rogier turns and bolts to the trees and disappears, but Akko and Temmo seem chained in place.

 _That’s right, you mean boys,_ Lyaella thinks. Her tear-blurred eyes find Mamma and Daddy. They’re running to get to them. _You’re in trouble now, you mean, mean people who are_ not _my friends!_

Daddy lifts Aemon up into his arms the moment he reaches them. He cradles his head to his shoulder and kisses his hair, his eyes wide with worry. Mamma sets her hand on Aemon’s back and looks at Lyaella.

“What’s happened?” she asks. Her eyes flitter from Lyaella, to Akko, to Aemon, and then to Temmo. Temmo has backed away so far Lyaella thinks he’s trying to disappear into the trees.

“Aemon, he—” she’s interrupted.

“H-H-HE _HIT ME_!” Aemon howls. He twists in Father’s arms and points a quivering finger at Akko. His cheeks are red with tears, and he looks so sad and so pained…he reaches his hand up and touches the back of his head. “HE-HE _FOWED_ A B-BIG R-ROCK AT ME! AT M-M-MY L-LITTLE H-H-HEAD!”

“ _What_?!” Father hisses, and Mother’s head snaps in the direction of Akko. 

Akko looks like he’s going to throw up.

“No! No! I didn’t! I didn’t, _Khaleesi!_ I didn’t!” Akko cries.

Mother kneels in front of Lyaella. Her eyes are full of pain like every one of Aemon’s wails are stabbing her heart.

“Lyaella?” she questions. “What happened?”

Lyaella looks up at Brother. Brother’s eyes meet hers, and she understands. Because for a moment, looking at his violet eyes, she can think what he’s thinking. And usually she would never, ever lie to Mother and Father…but she’s angry at Akko. Very angry.

She turns her eyes to the grass and scans it. She sees the stone Brother dropped, the one he hit against his own head. She shuffles over and bends down to pick it up. She turns and holds it out to Mamma wordlessly. Mother’s face falls.

“All right,” she says quietly. She takes the stone and stands back up. She walks over, and as she inspects Aemon’s head— he’s still bawling— Lyaella looks at Akko. He’s begging her with his eyes.

“Ask the Great Other for help,” Lyaella hisses, and she doesn’t even feel bad about it. Not at all. He is not a nice friend.

Aemon keeps up his trick until Mother tells Emmati to go get Akko’s parents immediately. Akko panics.

“No! No! _Please_! I didn’t! Prince Aemon, tell them, please! I didn’t! I DIDN’T!”

Aemon’s been watching the scene with his cheek resting against Daddy’s shoulder while Mamma gently strokes over his hair, sniffling sadly the entire time. He lifts his tear-streaked face up and looks down at Akko.

“You are mean,” he tells Akko.

“I’m sorry! But I didn’t throw that stone at you! Tell them! _Please!_ ”

“You maked Aella cry.”

“I’m _sorry!!_ ”

For once, he looks it. His eyes fill with tears. Aemon considers Akko as the older boy bawls like a little baby. For as ‘little’ as Akko insisted _Aemon_ was, and for how much he teased him and called _him_ a baby, Akko is definitely looking at Aemon like he’s big now. Like he’s a giant— like he’s got power— like Daddy and Mamma have. After a few seconds of Akko begging Aemon and weeping, Aemon looks up at Father.

“I hitted my head, Daddy,” he tells him.

Father frowns. “What? What do you mean?”

“I hitted my head with the rock,” Aemon repeats. He reaches up and gently touches over the spot the rock hit.

“ _He_ didn’t hit you?” Mother clarifies, her eyes narrowed.

“No. But he called Aella ‘stupid', and he call Nona ‘fat’, and he call me ‘baby’, and he maked ice circles. To call the _Gate_ _Uhver.”_ There’s a pause. Daddy and Mamma look at each other. Aemon adds something else. “And Aella cried and sayed ‘please stop’, but he didn’t.”

Akko clearly wasn’t expecting Aemon to come right out and tell them all of that. He looks at Aemon in shock.

“None of that is okay, and we are going to handle it. But you shouldn’t lie to us, Aemon,” Mother scolds. “We have to know the truth. If you just told us that, we’d talk to Akko and Temmo all the same.”

Akko and Temmo don’t look big and mean now. They are looking at their feet. But Mother doesn’t really get it, Lyaella thinks, because she wasn’t here and she didn’t hear how Akko and Temmo were talking. Aemon wasn’t really trying to get them in trouble…if he wanted to do that, he would’ve kept his lie the whole time and let Akko’s parents come here. He just wanted to show Akko that he can’t talk to them like that, that even if Brother _is_ little, he’s still clever enough to hurt them other ways if he really wanted to.

Daddy’s still staring at Aemon. Lyaella can’t tell whether he’s horrified or impressed with him.

“…You hit yourself in the head with a _rock_? Just to get him in trouble?”

“Yes,” Aemon says, his tears gone completely. “Like this.” He gently taps the back of Father’s head with his fist. Daddy keeps staring at him with that same look.

“He is mean to Aella. She was _crying_ ,” Aemon repeats. As if he thinks maybe Father didn’t hear it the first time.

Father and Mother look at each other. It’s one of their long looks. Lyaella thinks maybe they’re talking to each other in their heads.

“You and I are going to talk,” Daddy finally tells Aemon. He props him on his hip. “We’ll meet Mother and Sister in the courtyard.”

Aemon twists and looks back at Lyaella. She knows he’s worried for her, but she’s okay. Akko and Temmo won’t say anything to her now that Mother is here. She smiles at Brother, and he smiles back. He and Father are talking as they walk away, and even though Father doesn’t look angry, Lyaella thinks he’s probably talking to Aemon about his lying. Aemon doesn’t lie _all_ the time and usually never to them, but he can when he wants to, and he can lie very, very well when he does. He once tricked their scholarhouse maester into believing he couldn’t hold a quill just because he thought writing was boring. For a fortnight he spent their lessons building things and playing with special clays to help ‘strengthen his hands’ when really there was nothing wrong with them in the first place (except for that Aemon didn’t care to work on his writing). When the maester spoke worriedly to Mother and Father about it after it never got any better, they were confused because Aemon uses quills to draw and color with shaded inks all the time at home. His lie was found out and he had to do his writing again. And another time, when Auntie Sansa was watching them, he tricked her into thinking he was very allergic to turnips just because he didn’t want to eat them. She believed it ‘cause he start itching when he ate a bite, but he wasn’t really itchy at all, it was just pretending. He stopped lying as soon as Auntie Sansa started to panic, though.

Tyrion says Aemon is extremely clever because of his lying. Auntie Arya says he’s stubborn. Lyaella knows he’s both. It doesn’t bother her at all because he never tells bad lies to hurt people, and he always stops on his own when things start to get out of hand. And he _never, ever_ lies to her. They tell each other everything, and she likes to play with him and spend time with him more than anyone else in the entire world.

Mother talks sternly with Akko and Temmo in Dothraki, and then she tells Emmati she doesn’t ever want Lyaella and Aemon left alone with ‘a boy Akko’s age’ ever again. Emmati says sorry many times, and Lyaella feels bad for her. When she and Mother turn to walk away and head back home, Mother takes Lyaella’s hand, and Lyaella tries to stand up for Emmati.

“Em doesn’t know, Mother,” she tells her earnestly. “She doesn’t know Akko is mean.”

Emmati is her Uncle Bran’s southron best friend, and Lyaella doesn’t want her to be in trouble. She takes good care of all the horses—especially Cow One— and she always sneaks Lyaella sweets. She’s funny, and she lets Lyaella put some of her nice-smelling oils on her own wrists sometimes.

Mother squeezes Lyaella’s fingers in a hand-hug.

“I’m not angry with Emmati,” she reassures Lyaella. “But it’s not appropriate for you to be alone with Akko.”

“We weren’t alone…Aemon was there,” Lyaella points out. “And Emmati was _there_ , she was just far away from us.”

Mother looks down at her. She looks so worried…about Akko’s meanness? About Aemon? About the Great Other?

“An _adult_ should have been with you. He’s too old to be alone with you.”

Lyaella thinks about that as they walk. Too old? So many of the people she spends time with are older than her. She does lessons with kids Akko’s age at the scholarhouse every day.

“Nona is older,” Lyaella says. “She’s ten, but I’m six-almost-seven.”

“Yes, but Nona is a girl, and she treats you nicely.”

Lyaella furrows her brow. “So boys that are older than me? Sam is older than me.”

“Yes, but Little Sam is kind. I’m not so sure about Akko. And perhaps not Temmo, either, if he was letting Akko treat you like that.”

Lyaella wants to defend Temmo because he’s been her friend since she was a baby, but she’s still upset with him, so she doesn’t. She leans closer to Mother instead and admires the flowering plants they pass by. She loves Missandei’s flowers the most. They’re deep red dragon’s breaths, and as they pass by, Lyaella comes to a stop and walks over to touch the velvety petals. After that, she traces Missandei’s name on the plaque like she always does, the tip of her finger traveling along the indentions in the cool metal as the scent of the flowers wafts over her. She thinks the letters as her finger draws over them. _M, I, S, S, A, N, D, E, I…_

She sees Mother kneel beside her from the corner of her eye, and when she looks up at her, Mother still looks unhappy.

“What happened with Akko and Temmo?” she asks. “I want to hear the full story.”

It’s her serious-voice, the one she uses when she’s talking to people with problems in the audience chamber or arguing with the small council. Lyaella feels her stomach twist. She wonders if she’s in trouble somehow. She doesn’t remember doing anything bad, but maybe she did.

“What’s wrong? Are you mad at me, Mamma?” she worries.

Mother’s frown deepens. She brushes Lyaella’s tangled hair back from her eyes. “Not at all. But I am angry with those boys for being mean to you, and I’m worried about you.”

That surprises Lyaella. “Why? I’m okay.” At least, she thinks she is. Her brow furrows as she tries to think up what could be wrong with her. “The Great Other didn’t really come.”

But Mother’s not worried about the Great Other. Lyaella can tell because that reassurance doesn’t reassure her at all. She lowers down so she’s sitting on the ground in front of Missandei’s plant, and then she reaches over and pulls Lyaella over onto her lap. Lyaella leans back against her mother and looks up at her face. She can feel her mother’s heart beating faster than normal from where her back is pressed to her chest, and she interprets that to be from fear, though she still isn’t sure what Mother’s afraid of.

“Did Akko hurt you? I know he upset you with the ice circles, but did he upset you in any other way? Did he say anything to you— or touch you?”

Lyaella understands now. She thinks of how tall and big Akko is. If he pushed her, she would fall and get really hurt. But he never pushed her or hit her before.

“No, he didn’t push me,” she assures Mother.

“He didn’t touch you at all?” Mother asks again, and Lyaella shakes her head.

“He just scared me. The ice circles aren’t a game, Mamma…”

“No, they’re not,” Mother agrees. She hugs Lyaella tight and presses a firm kiss to the top of her head. She leaves her face resting there for a moment, and when she sighs, it sounds like the kind of sigh you make when you’re so relieved about something that you could cry. Lyaella guesses she’s so happy to know Akko hadn’t pushed her down. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t there, Ly. I’m sorry that he scared you, and it will never happen again. From now on, you won’t have riding lessons with Temmo or Akko anymore. Pick two other friends— any you’d like.”

She thinks about some of her friends, friends she loves and friends she’d be happy to ride with. Like Nona, Farran, Annabella, Dorian, Nettie, Avaline, Evethi, Dick, Anton, Rani, Likki…

Lyaella’s not really sure she wants that, though. She sits curled in Mother’s lap and thinks about it for a little bit, her eyes on Missandei’s beautiful flowers and her ears enjoying the sound of the tree chimes breathing music into the cool breeze, and then she looks back up at Mother’s beautiful face. She touches her cheek— she still has worry lines on her forehead. She feels her tummy twist again at the sight of them. She doesn’t want Mother to worry about anything.

“But Temmo’s been my friend since I was a baby,” she tells her. “It’s okay for him to come ride. He was just mad today because I won our race instead of letting him or Akko win, and it made him feel embarrassed, I think. Because I’m little and not even a Dothraki. Maybe I would feel angry too if one of them beat me in a dragon-race, ‘cause I’m a Targaryen and they’re not.”

She still doesn’t think it was okay for them to make games of her ice circles or call Nona fat or talk so disrespectfully to Brother, but she can understand why they were mad. It’s okay for people to be angry because emotions can’t be wrong, but the way you act because of your emotions can be wrong. Mother and Father taught her that. She can feel very upset and sad when Sam hunts deer, but she can’t scream at him and tell him he’s a murderer. She can cry in Father’s arms all she needs to and he’ll always kiss her and make her feel better, but she can’t try to steal the deer's head off Sam’s wall and build a pyre to have a funeral for it. It’s like that for Temmo and Akko, too…probably it’s okay for them to be angry with her, but they just can’t say mean things and try to scare her. Someone just hasn’t taught them that yet.

She feels better about what happened after thinking about those things, but Mother still doesn’t look like she feels okay about it. She gently nudges Lyaella’s chin up with her knuckle and gazes down into her eyes, her lips turned down.

“Do you let those boys win often?”

Lyaella has never decided for sure how many times is ‘often’. A ‘couple times’ is supposed to mean two exactly, but people don’t even use it the right way. Sometimes ‘a couple times’ means four, or six, or eight. So she has _no idea_ how many times ‘often’ is, nor does she have any idea the number of times she’s ridden Cow One at a lazy trot just to let Temmo and Akko blaze past her. Mostly every time. She guesses that’s probably ‘often’. Or ‘almost always’.

“Yes. Or maybe almost always,” she muses.

Mother frowns deeper at that. Lyaella reaches up and touches the edges of her sad lips gently, wishing she could figure out what she’d done to make her mother sad so she could make her happy again.

“Why do you let them win?” Mother asks. “Are they mean to you if you don’t?”

“Yes,” Lyaella answers. “But I’m not scared of them…not usually, I mean…the ice circles scared me, but they don’t do the ice circles all the time. That was the first time. I just don’t want to have fights. It makes them unhappy to lose, and I don’t care if _I_ lose.”

Mother readjusts Lyaella so she’s sitting more comfortably in her lap, and then she leans back on her hands. She looks up at the sky for a little while. She’s thinking, and Lyaella thinks, too. She wonders about Aemon and Father and what they might be doing right now. Eating, maybe. She can’t wait to go back to them. She and Aemon are going to play king-and-queen. They left last night’s castle-fort up in the small council chambers and Mother promised them they could play in it again after their lessons. Lyaella loves playing with Brother because he plays like she does: he doesn’t change the rules halfway through the game or try to argue about who he’s going to be when they play pretend, and they play pretend a lot. King-and-queen is their favorite game, especially when Mother and Father let them play in the audience chamber or in the council chambers with real scrolls of parchment with _The Garden_ stamped up top. On very special days, Mother and Father let them sit at their desks use their signing quills and wax seals. She and Brother love that; they send proclamations and invitations to all their friends. But riding on dragonback is their most favorite thing, and Lyaella wonders when they might go to the Dragonpit today…maybe after supper. That’s usually when they go on busy days. Aemon still has to ride with Father or Mother, but she gets to ride Moonbloom all by herself now…maybe she’ll see if she can finally ride over the sea tonight…it’ll be so pretty with the moon out…

“Ly?”

Lyaella looks up at Mother’s downturned face. Mother gently strokes her hair back, and then she caresses Lyaella’s cheeks with her thumbs. Lyaella can tell she has something serious to say.

“I don’t want you to let those boys win anymore. Okay?”

It’s not really okay. Because she thinks she would win every single time if she let herself, and then no one would want to play with her anymore. People don’t like to lose all the time, and especially not boys.

“But it’s just a game, Mother,” she says earnestly. “I don’t mind to lose sometimes. ‘Cause I know that I’m good anyway.”

“It’s not just a game to those boys.”

Mother says it like she’s making a point that goes against what Lyaella is arguing for, but that’s exactly what Lyaella is saying.

“Right…they care a lot about winning, but I don’t care most the time. So I can let them win sometimes. Maybe half the time!”

Half is better than every single time. Lyaella thinks it’s a great solution. But Mother shakes her head, and she’s still wearing her worried frown.

“Never again, sweetling,” she orders gently. She tucks Lyaella’s curls behind her ears. “I know it’s just a fun game to you, but it’s not to them. Winning is strength and strength is power, and power is how you rule. For the Dothraki in particular. You can’t hide your talent and skill just to make other people feel better, and you shouldn’t have to. You’ve got to show the world how special you are. Part of being queen is making sure that people know you’re capable and strong so they’ll trust in you. You just need to be yourself.”

Lyaella is frowning now. “What if I’m playing with babies? I can’t let them win? I think that’s mean, Mother.”

Mother laughs at that. “Well, that’s a bit different, isn’t it? It’s okay to let children younger than you win sometimes. That’s being kind and helping to guide them. But there’s no reason you should be letting boys as old as Temmo and Akko win every time. You’re going to be their queen someday; they need to understand why that is. They might not see it if you’re constantly letting them outshine you.”

Lyaella thinks about the way Temmo and Akko look at Mother versus how they look at her.

“I don’t think they will ever treat me like they treat you.”

“They will. They’ll see you for who you are one day— they’ll understand. But only if you’re _you_. Part of _you_ is your talent and cleverness, and those are things to celebrate, not hide. Not for anyone.”

She kind of understands. She nods to show Mother she will follow her rules, and Mother smiles as she kisses her forehead.

“Father and I are going to handle what happened. The way they treated you and Aemon was unacceptable. They won’t be unkind to you ever again,” Mother promises.

Lyaella trusts her with her whole entire heart. She isn’t afraid they’ll do it ever again because she knows Mother and Father will take care of it. But she still remembers what they said this time, and as she and Mother stand up and resume their walk back home, she’s thinking about Akko calling her stupid. It’s not with sadness…her feelings weren’t hurt that much, but she can’t stop wondering why he said it. It just won’t leave her head. Why would he think that? What did she do that was stupid?

“Akko said that I was stupid,” Lyaella shares with her mother. She wraps her arms around her middle and hugs herself. “No one ever called me stupid before.”

People have called her lots of things. Clever, sweet, bright, curious, graceful, quick… _stupid_ doesn’t fit in with those other words. But Akko must’ve had a reason to use that word out of all the thousands and thousands of words he could’ve chosen. If he wanted to be mean to her, he could’ve called her short ‘cause she is short. Or teary because she she does cry when she’s upset or afraid. Or maybe scared because she doesn’t like being away from Aemon at night and she doesn’t like her nightmares and she doesn’t like Mother and Father being away from her for too long. So why _stupid?_

“You are _not_ stupid. That’s the most absurd thing I’ve heard in a long time,” Mother says firmly. “Don’t you listen to him for a second. You’re cleverer than him and he knows it. He was just trying to upset you. You’re a better rider than him and smarter than him and you’re half his age: that angered him. Some boys can’t bear it when girls are better than them. Boys like that grow up and turn into small men, men that aren’t worth your time and never will be. Don’t give his words any thought.”

Mother seems angry. _Her_ feelings seem more hurt by Akko’s words than Lyaella’s are. No one has ever really been mean to Lyaella before— not really— so she’s never seen Mother like this. She feels like Mother would lock Akko away right now if he appeared in front of them.

“I don’t know why he thinks that I am,” Lyaella admits. “Maybe because of my ice circles?”

Not everyone understands them. She doesn’t tell many people about them or the things she sees in her nightmares. Temmo is her _only_ friend she tells that to, and only because he already knows about it since she’s been telling him since she was little. Maybe he and Akko think she’s foolish.

“He _doesn’t_ think that you are, sweetling. He was just being unkind, and it won’t happen again.” Mother slows. When she and Lyaella come to a stop, she hoists Lyaella up and holds her. Lyaella’s glad she’s short then. If she was tall, Mother probably wouldn’t be able to hold her well anymore, and that would make her sad. She’s afraid for when Mother and Father can’t hold her anymore.

She hugs Mother’s neck and rests her face against her shoulder. Mother’s hand rubs her back in warm circles.

“There are mean people in the world, Ly. I wish it weren’t true, but it is. You can’t _ever_ let the things they say change how you feel or think about yourself. If you ever find yourself questioning it, you come right to me or Father or Brother, and we’ll remind you of who you are. And who are you are is a princess who is wonderfully clever and bright, good down to your very bones, and so incredibly sweet.” She kisses the top of Lyaella’s head. “All right?”

Lyaella nods against Mother’s shoulder. “All right,” she promises.

Mother kisses the crown of her head again and hugs her tight. Lyaella’s heart is warm from what she’s said, but it’s not exactly what Lyaella’s thinking so hard about. She doesn’t think she’s stupid and Akko’s comment didn’t make her think it for a moment. She knows she’s very clever, just like she knows she’s talented and strong— enough that she doesn’t have to win every race. But she’s realized just now that people can see her in ways that are wrong. Akko can look at her and decide she’s stupid and weak even if it’s not true. And it’s odd to her. To think that Akko could walk around and think she’s so different from how she really is…it makes her think about queens and kings from history and the people who went against them. Probably those people just had the wrong words in their heads to describe the queen and king.

People have always been nice to Lyaella because people have always liked her. Now that someone doesn’t, she’s not sure what to do about it. But she thinks ignoring that person probably isn’t the best thing. If she’s going to be queen one day, she’s going to have to get used to winning people over. She’s just got to find the right way to do it. She’s just going to have to show Akko who she really is.

“Do you understand what I mean by all that, my love?” Mother asks gently.

Lyaella smiles and nods. “Yes, Mother. I understand what to do.”

Mother taps her forehead with a smile. “That’s because you’re clever.”

“Not stupid,” Lyaella agrees.

Mother’s laughing as she folds her close to her heart in a tight _I love you_ hug. “The furthest thing from it.”

She’s just got to show Akko that.

II.

Jon feels a flash of irritation as his eyes scan the word _recruitment._ He pushes the document across the small council table towards Tyrion and Davos.

“How many times must I say we are _not_ allocating funds for this while we’re away?” he demands. He looks between the two Hands. He’s inclined to believe it was Tyrion who snuck it back on the document, but Davos was the last one to review this particular copy. “We don’t need any more soldiers, and we’ve already told you what we want this amount to be funneled into.”

Davos and Tyrion exchange a quick look. It causes Jon’s irritation to grow.

“I mean what I say and I won’t repeat myself again. Daenerys and I have discussed all your propositions at length, and we’re not convinced it’s the best use of our funds.”

Tyrion sets his hand on the parchment uneasily. “The Faith—”

Jon’s jaw clenches. “The Faith won’t even _think_ about stepping a toe out of line if they know what’s good for them.”

“Still— quite a few soldiers have returned home to Essos, putting our numbers lower than they’ve ever been—”

“As they should be! That was a conquering army; we’ve already conquered. We don’t need more soldiers, and we don’t need to use our plumbing funds on such redundancy. We need that money—”

“Your plumbing ambitions are draining more and more money every day. Half the spigots in the Garden aren’t working correctly as it is; the one in my chambers has an awful stench. The maintenance of it all is yet another costly drain on our finances. We’ve already done enough, Your Grace. We’ve moved from having cisterns in the public squares to having wells and spigots every _four_ _houses_ —!”

Jon plows over Tyrion’s interruption. “We have fifteen pipes to re-glaze beneath the queen’s fountains, hundreds more tunnels to excavate, and hundreds more wells to construct. What we don’t need is to waste that funding we’ve saved _for this purpose_ on recruitment and training of soldiers we don’t even need.”

Tyrion nearly groans in annoyance. He swallows the complaint with a sip of wine. Jon thinks he mutters something about Sansa beneath his breath, but Sansa is visiting in the Iron Islands presently and thankfully isn’t here to nag him.

“Jon,” Davos interjects. “I would usually agree with you, but with you and Daenerys leaving next week, I’d feel more comfortable with more soldiers and support here.”

“You’ll have the entire Royalguard, our current number of soldiers—which is more than suffice— and soon, Yara, Sansa, Quentyn, Sam, and Tormund. What else do you need?”

“Men. Better numbers, Your Grace,” Davos persists.

Jon shakes his head. “We’ve spent _years_ accruing this money— years planning the completion of this project— Daenerys and I won’t have it put off another three.”

“Then let us pull a bit from our HOH funds—” Tyrion must see the way Jon’s eyes flash. “— Just a bit! A tiny bit!”

“Absolutely _not_ ,” Jon answers. He’s less likely to pull money from there than anywhere else. Over the past three years, King’s Landing has had nearly one-hundred deaf children born. Jon was right to worry at the start of it, and his instincts were correct: it turned from two to many. He and Daenerys recognized that quickly and began shoveling money towards the issue. They provided funding to the Conclave for research, towards scholars for the development of better ways to educate those children, and later towards special programs created specifically to provide ongoing support to the affected families. Their funding has granted them answers but no solutions; the Conclave’s working theory is that the deafness is some ‘defect’ passed down from a mother or father who previously recovered from Spring Fever, but they have no idea what to do about it. As far as they can theorize, the sickness alters something in those who survive it, something that is then passed down to their children, and they’re not optimistic there’s a way to undo that.

And because Jon once had Spring Fever, it makes the situation deeply personal for Jon and Dany— not that it wasn’t already. They’ve known for three years now that their daughter will likely be deaf, and the Conclave’s tentative discovery only cemented that knowledge. Jon’s blessed to have seen the future, to have assurances that his daughter thrives. It’s more than other parents can say. Yet he still finds it painful and difficult to think that _he_ is the reason for it, to think that something within _him_ has changed, something that will affect his future daughter’s everyday life— something that will affect every child he has from now on. He tries not to feel guilty or angry about it, but if he thinks about it for too long, he becomes overwhelmed with the injustice of it all. The only thing that comforts him in moments like that is the thought that there must be a reason. It _must_ be for something. R’hllor must see something he can’t yet.

“I won’t take so much as a penny from that. Do not suggest it again.”

Tyrion nods quickly. “Yes, Your Grace.”

Jon twists in his seat and turns to look at Dany, certain she’s as outraged as he is that Tyrion even suggested that. She was poring over the packing list for their trip, but she’s not now; the papers are pushed to the side, and she’s leaning back in her seat and watching Aemon and Lyaella as they play on the other side of the room, her hand resting lightly on her stomach and her face creased with visible worry. It shifts Jon’s thoughts entirely. He touches the back of her hand. He feels a rush of _her_ , and right then, she’s made up of nausea and worry. He’s not certain if the two feelings are connected or not. _What is it?_ he asks her. She pulls her eyes from their children and turns to look back at the paper in front of her. _Nothing that can’t wait until later,_ she assures him. Her next thought is tinged with annoyance. _Someone’s altered the numbers on this document again. We’ve got double the soldiers assigned to our ship than we had in the first draft._

“ _Stop_ revising these documents,” Jon snaps. “We’re done with revisions. If you’re worried about your lack of soldiers here, why insist that we take twice the number we planned on taking?”

Tyrion looks at Jon like he’s completely lost his mind.

“So _you_ are safe! So the queen is safe! So the little princess and prince are safe! What do we have to protect here if you aren’t safe?” He sees some expression on Dany’s face that makes him backtrack a bit. He runs his hand through his hair. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t think a trip east is wise. _One_ priestess went rogue. _One_ since Prince Aemon was born. That’s not a big enough issue to drive you back to Essos.”

“We are not arguing about this again,” Daenerys tells him firmly. “We’ll have Arya with us in Essos, and plenty of other soldiers besides.” She lifts her quill and scrawls a few quick marks on the parchment, and then she signs it at the bottom and passes it to Jon. Jon takes her quill and signs his name beneath hers. Tyrion sighs.

“Here,” Daenerys says. She rolls the parchment up and passes it to Tyrion. “See to it that Mattaggo receives this by dusk so he can begin preparations.”

“Fifty more,” Tyrion urges. “Fifty!”

“No.”

“Forty?”

“No.”

“Thirty?”

 _“No._ We have what we need. There comes a time when you must trust our judgment, Lord Tyrion.” She leans over the table and drags the budgetary document back over to them. Jon scratches out the parts Tyrion and Davos altered, and then he signs it and passes it over for Dany to sign, too. She signs her name quickly, and then she rises from the table. “I understand your concern, and I’m thankful for your guidance. But everything is going to be fine. I’m certain of it.”

She’s as certain as Jon is, and that’s because they know their kingdom inside and out. The past three years have been lovely and rewarding; they’ve been the kind of years that have made Jon genuinely enjoy ruling. He feels he’s stepped fully into the shoes of the type of king he wants to be. No longer does he feel he’s ruling simply because he wants to be at Dany’s side. Now, he feels he’s ruling because he was born for it as much as she was. They work together seamlessly, and the success they’ve built these past six years fills Jon with pride so deep that it can only be bested by the pride he feels when he gazes at his children.

That unwavering source of pride is where his wife is headed now, and he rises and follows. She walks over and curls atop the settee by the window to sit near their children. Jon joins her. He pulls her against his side and turns his gaze to the Myrish carpet a few steps from them where Aemon and Lyaella are playing. They were involved in a giggly game of Cyvasse at the start of the council meeting, but the board is ransacked now, and they’re using the pieces for some other make-believe game. They’ve sorted them into piles for each of the ten pieces, and they’re chattering away as they move the piles from here to there.

“And now we have…” Aemon pauses and eyes the pile of fourteen ivory and onyx elephants. His lips move as he counts them. “…fifty _-fousand_ -ten _elphants_.”

Jon furrows his brow. He glances down at Dany.

“He’s pretending, right?” he murmurs. “He can count to fourteen.”

He thinks he can…he hopes it, anyway. He’s heard Aemon count properly before, but Aemon only counts properly when he feels like it, never on demand. Last week, he made up some counting song in the bath where he ended up counting to one-hundred by threes all on his own, which seemed very impressive to Jon. He bundled him up in a towel and took him right to Dany to let her hear it, but when Jon asked him to do it again, he said he was ‘bored with that’ and moved right along to something else and refused to do it again. Jon can only guess he’s pretending now, but it’s difficult to know with any certainty _what_ Aemon knows. His knowledge seems intrinsically tied to his level of engagement and interest. He’ll act like he’s never seen a letter or number in his life if he decides he doesn’t much feel like learning. It’s aggravating for Jon, who clearly took Lyaella’s enthusiastic, unrelenting love for learning anything and everything for granted. Lyaella would sit on the sofa for hours reading about taxation principles and be perfectly content. But Aemon, tasked with studying the same topic, would rather go out and manipulate someone into giving him their money and call it a day.

“Yes,” Dany smiles. “He’s just pretending for their game. I think it’s a battle of some sort.” She nods towards the carpet. Lyaella’s organizing the horses, elephants, and dragons now, and sure enough, Jon recognizes a battle formation. “If you’re going to war, it’s better to have ‘fifty-fousand ten’ elephants than fourteen.”

Jon laughs. “I suppose that’s true.”

Silence settles over him and Dany as they watch Aemon and Lyaella’s ‘battle’. Lyaella places all the horses in front to charge, but then she frowns and begins moving all of them to the back. _When our dragons breathe fire on the Others, they might accidentally get our horses if they’re in the front so close,_ she tells Aemon. _I don’t want them to get burnt up._

She moves the dragons to the front instead so they can breathe fire first, and Jon thinks it’s actually a better strategy as far as make-believe strategies for make-believe battles go. But it bothers his wife. He can feel the worry rolling off her in waves again. He tugs her closer and strokes her hip. His fingers glide over the cool silk of her dress.

“What is it?” he asks her.

She continues watching their game as she answers.

“Do you think she’s too sweet?”

Jon wasn’t expecting that question at all. To him, his daughter isn’t _too_ anything. She’s perfect in every way, and he loves everything about her. He knows Dany feels the same way, so that question takes him off guard. He studies the profile of Dany’s face and tries to understand what brought this about.

“No, I don’t. Why are you asking that?”

“I’m worried,” she admits quietly.

“I can tell. About what? Lyaella’s sweetness?”

“Yes. No.”

He waits. She finds her words and tears her gaze from Lyaella and Aemon. She looks up at Jon.

“I’m not worried about her sweetness. I’m worried about what the world will _think_ of her sweetness. What they’ll interpret it as. Weakness? I’m worried about what the world will do to her. Aemon is sweet, too, but it’s a different kind…his is more guarded. It’s safer. He’s sweet with us and with Ly, and his sweetness is safe that way. Ly…she just…” Dany shakes her head and looks back at their daughter. “Did you know she’s been letting those awful boys win when she races them? Nearly every time.”

It doesn’t surprise Jon. “She doesn’t need to win. She knows she’s a good rider. She’s confident. That’s a good thing, Dany.”

“Yes and no,” she says again. “It’s good that we’re raising a daughter so confident she can feel content to lose on purpose. But it’s not good that she’s letting people like that walk all over her.”

“I doubt she _is_ being walked over. She doesn’t see it that way. Needing to win every time is beneath her.” His pride is audible in his voice. “When she sees injustice, she’s as quick to lash out and correct it as you and I are. She can be fierce when she needs to be. But a game is just a game.”

For a moment, Dany looks like she might smile. “Your daughter said nearly the same thing. But as I told her…it’s not always just a game. They’ll interpret it as weakness. They _have_ interpreted it that way. They shouldn’t ever feel like they can disrespect her, much less be downright cruel to her. She’s their princess, and one day, she’ll be their queen. But they feel…above her. Entitled to treat her how they like. And I won’t stand for it.”

Jon won’t, either. He’s already told her what he wants to do about the situation. If he had his way, Temmo and Akko would be shoveling manure for a moonturn to atone for making his little girl cry (and that’s his minimum punishment). Still— beyond Jon’s instinctive rage at someone being unkind to his daughter— he knows there’s only so much they can expect from boys that age in the way of respect for a six-year-old girl.

“We’ll handle it,” Jon reassures her. “But I think our son frightened them well enough. You saw the look on their faces.”

“Yes. And I know we ought not to encourage the lying, but finding a way to make a boy over four times his age fear him _was_ clever.”

Clever, yes. That was never in question. But Jon thinks they’ve got their hands full with Aemon, something his wife has echoed plenty of times before. So far, he’s making raising Lyaella feel like a leisurely walk through the gardens in comparison. That’s another reason Jon’s so surprised to find Lyaella is the source of Dany’s worry. If he’s inclined to worry about any child’s traits, it’s Aemon’s manipulative side. The child is equal parts clever, stubborn, and willful; the combination has crafted a little person who will get wildly creative in his attempts to get to his desired outcome. If he’s going to follow a rule, it has to make complete sense to him, and he gets extremely set in his ways. Weaning him was particularly difficult, and the battles didn’t end there. Nearly everything is a debate with Aemon, and he debates well and tirelessly.

“It was clever,” Jon agrees. He voices what he thinks often. “It’s a good thing Aemon has us. It’s a good thing he’s so loved and so sweet. I think he could be a terror if he were thrown out into the world like you were, or even raised up like I was. He can be very manipulative.”

His good heart is what keeps him from taking his lies and manipulations too far. Were he raised in an uncaring environment, Jon’s not certain he’d have such a sweet, soft heart, simply because he doesn’t seem to care to show it to strangers. His softness is there in Rhaella’s Fortress with his family. And it’s precious softness, the kind that melts Jon’s heart and makes him feel choked up with love. The same kind their daughter has.

“He certainly uses his cleverness in different ways from how Lyaella uses hers. For as alike as they are in some ways, they’re complete opposites in others,” Dany agrees. Her brow lowers. “And that’s part of the problem, Jon.”

Jon understands without anything else needing to be said.

“It doesn’t matter what the people think. Lyaella is our heir, and Aemon would never go against her or challenge her even if the people tried to choose him. But I don’t think they will. Lyaella is loved, Dany. Even the northerners adore her.”

“Loved, yes. Deeply so. But respected?”

“She’s six-years-old!”

“Aemon is three. He had Akko begging.”

“Aemon is…Aemon. If you think Lyaella might be too soft as a queen, I think Aemon would be too hard.” He looks back down at their children. They’ve switched to another game, and now they’re tucking ‘baby eggs’ beneath blankets to ‘nap’. He gives voice to something he’s theorized for a while now. “Maybe that’s the point, Dany. Balancing, you know.”

They fit together. They always have. Jon knows they belong together, but the way in which they belong is something he tries not to give too much mind to. They’re little now, and there’s no use fretting over issues so far in the future. Yet he’s suspected for a while now that R’hllor has given much thought and attention to the topic, and that R’hllor is very firmly of the idea that they belong together in every way. There’s no other reason Lyaella’s nightmares should abate entirely when Aemon is close to her— unless R’hllor wants to ensure that Aemon remains close to her. If that’s truly a play of R’hllor’s making, it’s incredibly effective: their children are inseparable, especially at night. He and Dany have already started wondering when or if they’ll grow out of it, and when and _how_ they’ll force them apart at night if they don’t. Right now, they’d both rather step on nails than sleep in separate beds.

“Perhaps,” Dany agrees. “If that’s what she chooses. What he chooses. But we won’t know until they’re much older how they feel for each other. I just don’t want Lyaella overlooked or overshadowed, and Aemon is…”

“Kingly,” Jon finishes for her. It’s true. The people have seen it since he was born. “But Lyaella is queenly, too. People have always seen that.”

“Yes,” Dany agrees. “But how often do they see queens as the centerpiece rather than the complimenting piece to a king?”

Jon arches an eyebrow.

“I’m looking at one right now,” he reminds her.

“I’m different from Lyaella.”

Jon smiles at that. “Not by much.” His heart swells as he thinks of all the wonderful things their daughter inherited from Dany. He pulls her down and tucks her over his heart. The rose scent of her hair fills his senses as he leans down and kisses the top of her head. “ _You’re_ sweet.”

“Not like she is.”

“She’s six,” Jon repeats patiently. “She’s as sweet as she is because we’ve protected her and kept her that way.”

“That’s true,” Dany agrees. She falls quiet as she watches their children rock their ‘baby eggs’ to sleep. Jon hears Aemon whispering about ‘enemies in the dungeon’, and he can’t help but laugh at how grave and serious his son looks and sounds.

“It’s overwhelming at times,” Dany admits.

Jon looks back at her. “What is?”

“Her golden heart— her sweetness…her innocence. I feel like it’s such a rare and precious thing, perhaps because it was something I was never afforded. Sometimes I feel frightened because I’m not sure what to do with it— how to protect it. And that’s all I want to do, Jon. I just want to keep her safe in this world that’s often not safe at all for little girls.” She pulls back enough to look up at him. She’s troubled. “I was terrified, Jon. How upset she looked earlier…and how furious Aemon was…and then he said what he said about Lyaella crying and asking Akko to stop, and horribly, my first fear was—”

She breaks off abruptly. Jon’s surprised to see tears sparkling in her eyes. She inhales shallowly through her nose and tries her hardest to keep from blinking in an obvious attempt to suppress the building tears, and Jon’s unsure what to say. It takes him a moment to puzzle out what she thought, what had her so upset. When he does, his reaction is visceral. He feels his stomach clench and cramp with deep nausea, and pure terror races through his frame.

“I would kill him,” he says. His words shake. “Dany—I would _kill him—_ ”

“I would, too. Aemon just meant Akko wouldn’t stop teasing her, but when I first heard it, it filled me with so much…”

“Terror,” Jon finishes for her. His heart is still trembling in his chest. Had that horrific thought occurred to him in that clearing, he’s not sure what he would’ve done.

“ _Yes_ ,” Dany breathes. “I felt so ill. I still do. Logically I knew nothing even slightly like that could’ve happened, but part of me instinctively feared it anyway. And I know so much of it is because of the things I went through…things I experienced. Things I’m terrified our daughter will one day experience despite our best efforts. I don’t think the world is good enough for her, Jon. Safe enough. Not yet. Maybe not ever; look at how much pushback we got when we first criminalized husbands beating their wives. We had men protesting that it was their right to beat them...and those are the same men our daughter shares a world with. What would we do? If someone hurt her? In any way. I can’t imagine it. I can’t.”

Jon feels her fear. He has thoughts like that often. Thoughts where he is wholly aware of his own weaknesses, his own vulnerabilities. He loves no role as much as he loves being a father, but nothing in the world has ever made him weaker. In so many ways, he’s only as strong as his three-year-old and six-year-old. Because if something ever happened to them, he would fall apart. Had Akko set an inappropriate hand on his daughter, he thinks he may have beaten that boy to death right where he stood, and he wouldn’t feel a moment of regret or conflict for it.

“And if the world’s not good enough for her…what will it do to her when she inherits it?” Dany worries.

Jon knows the answer to this. “What will _she_ do to _it_? She’ll make it better, Dany. It won’t be the world twisting her heart and making her different: it’ll be her taking the world and changing it to be like her.”

He believes it wholeheartedly. His daughter makes him want to be a better person every day; he has no doubts that she’d do the same thing for her people.

“If the people won’t listen to her? Won’t follow her?”

“They _will_ ,” Jon says firmly. He pulls her to his chest again and hugs her tightly; she sinks and melts against him. “On a list of things to worry about, whether or not Lyaella will be a good queen should be at the very bottom. She _will be_. With or without Aemon at her side. She was born for it.”

He nudges her chin up and kisses her soft lips. He means it to be once, but it turns into six, each lingering longer than the first. He feels warmth from the top of his head to his toes, and he’d like nothing more than to go on kissing her. And though he doesn’t doubt she’s genuinely worried about Lyaella, he knows some of this worry is probably tied to other anxieties. Anxiety about leaving their kingdom in the hands of others, anxiety about Rhae — whom Jon is certain exists already, even if Dany isn’t; three _is_ their special number, after all, and Aemon is three now— and anxiety about being on a boat again. It’s been over six years now since they last journeyed on one.

“Our girl is strong,” Jon continues. He kisses her a final time. “It takes _more_ strength to be soft, not less. And she’s got a very stubborn, persistent companion who would rather hit himself in the head with a rock than let an instance of cruelty against her go unpunished.”

Dany smiles then. Her curved lips press to his again, and he tugs her up into his lap. She loops her arms around his neck.

“They love each other. That’s the way it should be.”

Jon looks back over at their children. They’re curled up on the carpet giggling together now, their faces bright with smiles. Their ‘baby eggs’ (rolled up blankets) are wedged between them, and Aemon’s pulling idly at Lyaella’s soft, silver curls and smiling as they spring back into shape, his expression utterly drenched in affection. Jon can’t help but smile, too.

“Yes,” he agrees.

It’s special to have someone like that, someone who’s loved you from your first breath and will love you to your last. The value of that cannot be overstated.

III.

Lyaella’s song that night sounds sad.

Daenerys brushes her fingers through her daughter’s damp curls as she listens to the melody of the harp, her heart twisting in her chest. The song is haunting; Dany finds herself overcome with memories she hasn’t thought of in years. Lonely, cold nights spent curled up under awnings with Viserys; painful mornings in Drogo’s tent, her body aching with soreness and loneliness and fear; those cold days spent alone on Dragonstone after Missandei’s death, certain she’d lost everyone…

She forgets she’s meant to be braiding Lyaella’s hair. Her hands slip from her curls, and it isn’t until Lyaella’s fingers drop from the harp and she turns around to look questioningly at Dany that she remembers why she sat behind her daughter in the first place.

“Your song distracted me,” Dany admits softly. Once Lyaella turns back around, she begins weaving her hair into a set of three intertwined braids. “It’s new one. What do you call it?”

“It’s called ‘Night Alone’,” Lyaella tells her, pride inflating each word. “Do you like it?”

Dany frowns deeply. She’s glad Lyaella can’t see her.

“It’s beautiful, but it makes me feel sad. What is ‘Night Alone’ about?”

Lyaella strums idly at her harp as she answers. “It’s how I would feel without my family.”

“Oh,” Dany says, her throat narrowing. She blinks against the burning in her eyes. “Well, it sounds very beautiful.”

“Thank you!” Lyaella beams. “Do you want me to play your song, Mother? It won’t make you feel sad.”

Dany smiles. “Yes, I would love that.”

Her song is much sweeter and happier than ‘Night Alone’. She finishes braiding Lyaella’s hair, smiling periodically at the cries and shouts coming from the opened doorway leading to the study where Jon and Aemon are playing a spirited game of Cyvasse, and then she kisses Lyaella’s braids and rises.

“I’m going to check on Father and Brother,” she tells her. “It sounds like their Cyvasse match has turned into a swordfight.”

Lyaella nods and continues playing. The song she’s on now is ‘Father’s Song’, the melody somehow both soft and strong, and Dany pauses for a moment to listen. She’s heard it many times, but never too many. It always floods her with affection, and now is no exception. The first thing she does when she walks into the study is cross over to stand behind Jon; she leans forward and hugs him from behind, her cheek resting against the crown of his head, and she smiles at Aemon’s deeply focused expression. She only has to scan the board once to see he’s winning.

“Losing to our three-year-old again?” Dany murmurs.

“I swear he cheats,” Jon complains, but it’s half-teasing. He can’t hide the pride in his voice.

“Not this time, Daddy!” Aemon argues.

“ _This time_ ,” Dany repeats, amused. She presses a kiss to Jon’s curls, and then she rounds the table and hoists Aemon up long enough to sit in his seat. She holds him close in her lap, smiling as he succumbs to affectionate giggles as she kisses his cheek. He twists and looks up at her; his violet eyes seem to twinkle with equal parts mischievousness and love: the typical _Aemon look._

“Mamma, look,” he whispers, and then he glances down at his lap quickly. Dany looks down, too, and what she sees sends her into badly-concealed giggles. He’s got what appears to be every dragon from every set of Cyvasse in Rhaella’s fortress piled in his lap. Dany tickles his side and rolls her eyes at Jon.

“He _is_ cheating!” she exclaims.

“ _Mamma!_ ” Aemon complains. He crosses his arms over the pile of dragons. “I’m not! I’ve not— I didn’t— I haven’t used them!”

She surveys the board carefully. Sure enough, the right number of dragons are on the board. There aren’t any mismatched extras snuck into play.

“What do you have all those dragons for, then? Are these your back-ups?” Dany asks, nodding down at the pile in his lap.

“It’s better with _more dagons_ ,” he tells her. “I’m making my Aemon Game.”

“Your Aemon Game?” Dany asks, and Aemon nods seriously. “Well, I’d love to play it once you’re done creating it.”

“It’s just _dagons_ and horses,” Aemon says. He pushes a piece forward on the board. “And the _dagons_ eat the horses up.”

“Don’t tell Ly that,” Jon warns. He moves an elephant on his side of the board. “You know how she loves horses.”

“ _Dagons_ are better,” Aemon says firmly. He moves one of the onyx dragons on the board. “I hate Akko and T.”

Dany meets Jon’s eyes. He doesn’t look surprised by those words, nor the sincerity of them. Dany guesses Aemon had quite a lot to say after Jon took him from the clearing earlier that day.

“Hate is a very strong thing,” Dany tells her son gently. “They frustrate you, you mean.”

“No. I hate them, I mean.” He counters Jon’s next move, his eyes never leaving the board now. “They maked Aella afraid.”

“They’re not playing with you and Lyaella any more,” Jon assures him. “Don’t worry about them.”

“I’m not _wowwying_ ,” Aemon says. “I don’t care. ‘Cause I hate them.”

It’s matter-of-fact, cold. Dany believes he means it. For a little one who’s so sweet that he still prefers to sit in her lap at every meal and won’t settle for less than twelve kisses before bed each night, he certainly sounds severe and harsh. It’s such an odd dichotomy that Dany finds herself just looking at her little son for a beat, unsure how to respond.

“I understand,” Jon admits. “I felt that way when I saw her upset, too. But Sister’s okay, and no one is going to upset her again.”

“No, they aren’t,” Aemon agrees. He slams an elephant down on the board, and Jon cries out, clearly taken aback by the brilliant move.

“Wait—hang on— what?” Jon demands, his dark brows furrowing.

Aemon’s beaming. “I win! Bye, Daddy!”

He scampers off Dany’s lap and runs to the solar towards Lyaella’s music, leaving Jon staring agape at the board.

“But…” he sits back and frowns. “But you can’t…but he _did_ …you’re not supposed to be able to— but it worked…”

“Need me to go get the Master of Cyvasse to explain how you got bested by a three-year-old?” Dany teases.

“ _No_ ,” Jon says severely. He sweeps the pieces off the board. “Tyrion never hears of this. I’m certain he taught Aemon that sneaky move in the first place…”

Daenerys is still stifling laughter as she rises. She walks over and sinks in Jon’s lap; her smile breaks through as she presses her lips to his, and soon, she’s muffling her laughter into their kisses.

“What are we going to do with him?” Jon mutters. He tugs Dany higher onto his lap and meets her eyes. “He’s…”

“Aemon,” Dany finishes, her lips twitching. She leans in and kisses him again. “Our little cunning prince.”

Jon shakes his head. “Can you imagine how much worse it’s going to get? He’s going to be insufferable at fifteen.”

“Fifteen? Generous. I was thinking it would start sooner than that. Hopefully Rhae has the good sense to tattle on him. I’m not confident Ly would.”

“No,” Jon agrees, sighing. “We’ve made quite the pair.”

Dany hums in agreement, but she doesn’t lament it. She’s glad for it. And no matter how frustrating she’s certain it will become, she’d never wish for anything else.

Their fearsome duo are innocent enough when they head back into the study. Lyaella’s engrossed in Aemon’s new version of Cyvasse, and the two chatter on in their ‘pretend language’— some strange combination of Dothraki and Valyrian— as they play. Dany has yet to find any true consistencies in the language, but she does believe the two understand each other perfectly when they speak it. Though whether that’s from the language itself or from some sort of early mind-sharing, she’s not sure.

Dany and Jon sit together at the desk in the corner and attend to a few last minute details in preparation for their departure, and then they corral their children to Lyaella’s bedchambers. They’re already bathed and dressed in their nightclothes, but the nighttime routine isn’t close to being over. Dany and Jon curl up with Aemon and Lyaella and read Lyaella’s three chosen books to them. Aemon sits between Dany’s legs and hugs her arms to his chest as Jon reads, and when it’s his turn for his books, he has a familiar request.

“I want to make a story,” he demands. He cranes his head back and looks up at Dany, his face so soft and adorable that Dany can’t keep from leaning her face down and kissing it a half-dozen times. Aemon smiles and squirms happily as she does. “You start, Mamma!”

She kisses the corner of his little mouth, and then she sits up. She combs her fingers softly through his dark hair as she begins.

“Once, in a land where it was always sunny, there lived a little girl named…Melody. But she wasn’t an ordinary girl, she…Jon?”

Jon’s rocking Lyaella back and forth in the cradle of his arms like a baby, smiling at her tinkling giggles. He continues the story. “Melody was special. She was the most beautiful girl in the entire world. She had…” he points at Aemon, and Aemon— who was waiting eagerly for his turn— bounces happily.

“She had _siver_ bouncy hair! And…and…she just…she sparkled!” Aemon adds. “You go, Aella! You go!”

Lyaella’s too busy giggling into Jon’s shoulder. She lifts her face when he pokes her side, and then she looks over at them, her cheeks flushed with happiness.

“She made everything so bright, but she didn’t know because she couldn’t see anything at all,” Lyaella continues. “She was blind _._ ”

Dany blinks at that. She meets Jon’s eyes.

“The most beautiful girl in the entire world can’t even see her own beauty?” Jon demands.

“No, but she knows, ‘cause her husband tells her, and her mother and father, too,” Lyaella explains.

“She’s married?” Dany questions. She arches an eyebrow. 

“Yes,” Lyaella affirms. “And one day she was having supper with her husband and he told her ‘you are the most beautiful in all the world’, and she said ‘you are the most handsome’, and he said ‘how do you know? You can’t even see me’.”

Dany can’t keep herself from laughing. “Okay. What next, Aemon?”

Aemon flops sideways so he’s lying supine across her lap. He looks at the ceiling as he continues.

“She says ‘yes I can, but only you.’”

Lyaella perks up. “Yes! ‘Cause her husband was special, too!”

“And he didn’t know he could be seened! Wow! _Wow,_ he sayed!” Aemon enthuses. “And…he left— and— and he combed his hair! To look nicer!”

“And he came back, and they went to sleep, and in the morning Melody said ‘I’m going to have a baby in my belly!’”

“Oh!” Jon says, taken aback. He chokes back laughter. “That’s…exciting.”

“How wonderful for them,” Dany adds, the corners of her lips spasming against a withheld smile. “And an unexpected turn to our story. What goes wrong? Who is the villain?”

“Maybe…the Great Other,” Lyaella decides.

“Yes,” Aemon agrees, his eyes wide. “He send a BIG, BIG, BIG giant, and the giant tries to sit on their house!”

Dany sets a hand over her heart. “And he squashes their baby?!”

“No, the baby’s still in Melody’s belly,” Lyaella assures her. “She’s fine.”

“Oh, good,” Jon says, feigning deep relief. “So then what?”

Aemon starts to giggle. Dany looks down at him with a smile as his giggles grow louder.

“What?” she asks, smiling.

“They poke the giant!”

“With their swords and arrows!” Lyaella adds.

“In his _bum_!” Aemon exclaims, and then he laughs harder, entirely amused by his own crass joke.

“He did try to sit on them, and that’s _not_ nice,” Lyaella exclaims. As if she needs to provide moral reasoning for why their fictional characters poked a fictional giant in the fictional bottom as he tried to sit on their fictional house. “‘Cause he _could’ve_ squashed their baby if it was born! And that would be baby murder.”

“Right,” Dany says somberly. “Then what happened?”

“So then the giant ran back to his mamma giant…”

“And Mamma Giant kiss him and hug him,” Aemon adds.

“Yes, because maybe the giant didn’t know any better. That’s just what giants do in this story. They just sit on people. And the giant learns from his mistakes, and then Melody has her baby, and she names her Aly.”

“The _end_ ,” Aemon says definitively.

“That’s it?” Jon asks. He sets Lyaella back in his lap so he can reach over and tickle the bottom of Aemon’s foot. Aemon succumbs to peals of laughter. “Nothing else happens?”

“They are happy,” Aemon adds between giggles. He leaps from Dany’s lap and practically tackles Jon and Lyaella. He hugs his father tightly around the neck, and Dany’s heart warms and turns to liquid in her chest. Jon holds their children close and kisses the top of both their heads, his smile bright and never faltering. He never looks so happy as he looks with Ly and Aemon in his arms.

“What an…interesting story,” Jon praises. “Thank you for that. There’s a lot to think about there.”

“You’re welcome,” Lyaella smiles.

They tell one more story, this one about a talking sword that dreams of one day being a knight, and then they settle down to sleep. Aemon spreads his baby blanket over Lyaella’s pillow, and Lyaella spreads hers over his, and then they curl up together in the middle of Lyaella’s bed. Dany snuggles Aemon and strokes Lyaella’s hair as Jon sings, and soon she’s exhausted, too. She drifts in and out, taken over by a wave of fatigue so deep and familiar she can’t help but wonder if she, like Melody, has someone else there with her, too.

IV.

Lyaella is warm and cuddly beneath her blankets. She pretends to be sleeping until Mother finally wakes up and leaves the room with Father, and then she sits up. Aemon blinks at her in the darkness.

“What?” Aemon whispers. He perks up. “We’re getting figs and oranges?!”

“No, not tonight,” she says. Her mind feels busy: she has so many thoughts she isn’t sure where to start. “I have to do something.”

“Go on Moonbloom?” Aemon asks. “I wanna come, too!”

“No,” Lyaella says again. She peers at Brother in the dark; he’s waiting eagerly like he expects this to be something very, very fun…but it’s not going to be. “I have to show Akko who I am. I have to show him that I’m a queen…I have to show him that I’m not stupid and weak.”

Brother’s expression twists up at once. “ _Akko_?” he spits.

“Yes. I have to make him like me again,” she explains. “‘Cause I’m going to be queen, and that’s just part of it.”

“Daddy sayed no. He sayed you can’t play with him,” Aemon reminds her.

“That’s why I have to sneak. Because they won’t let me see him before we leave, and probably never again,” Lyaella explains.

Aemon flops over her lap. He glares up at the ceiling. “Akko is stupid. I hate Akko. We can stay here and play _dagons_.”

“No, _you_ can stay here, if you want,” Lyaella corrects. “I have to do this. Okay?”

Aemon rolls over in her lap and leans forward, pressing his face into the mattress. He kicks his feet a couple times and makes a dragon-growl sound.

“ _Why_?” he whines, the word muffled into the bedding. “We can go get _food_! Not see _uggy_ Akko!”

“That’s not nice,” Lyaella frowns. “He’s not ugly. He’s just mean. And I _have to_ , and I am.”

“ _He’s_ not nice,” Aemon shoots back. He dragon-growls again, and then he sighs. “Ooooookayyyyyy. I’m coming with you.”

Lyaella smiles. “I knew you were.” She pushes him off her lap; he’s giggling as he sits up. “We can go to the balcony and wait for Moonbloom to fly by, and then we can go on her back.”

Aemon’s excitement at that prospect has him on board immediately. Aemon has never rode on Moonbloom before; he’s only been on Drogon and Storm with Mother and Father. Mother always says he’s too little to ride alone with Lyaella, but if they’re being bad and sneaking out already, Lyaella doesn’t think it matters much. She doesn’t want Mother or Father to be angry with her— she never wants that— but if she fixes the problem with Akko and Temmo, probably they’ll be so proud of her they won’t even care about the sneaking part. They’ll say she’s the best princess ever, and a wonderful future queen, and they won’t have to worry about her anymore.

She and Aemon giggle as quietly as they can as they tiptoe from her bed and dress each other in Lyaella’s warmest cloaks. Lyaella fastens her sword around her waist again, and Brother borrows her dagger since his bow is in Mother and Father’s chambers (he got in trouble a few weeks ago by practicing it at nighttime…in the solar. Which was naughty.) Lyaella helps him hook it to his trousers, and then they put their boots on. Once they’re ready, they walk lightly over the floor and ease the door to Lyaella’s balcony open. It’s much smaller than Mother and Father’s balcony, and the railing is a lot higher, but Lyaella loves it out here, anyway. She likes the fresh air. Sometimes she thinks she can remember the smell of the salty fresh air that first night of her life, when she was a brand new baby snuggled with Father on that little boat. Since it was what she smelled almost first of all, that’s probably why she likes it. Like how she loves the smell of Mother and Father, too.

She and Brother are about to go stand by the railing to watch the dark, star-peppered sky for Moonbloom, but right as they’re about to step all the way out into the night, they hear Mother laugh. Lyaella turns towards the sound automatically; she realizes quickly enough that Mother and Father are on _their_ balcony, too— it’s close to Lyaella and Aemon’s, so close that if they’d gone to the railing, they could’ve looked to the left and seen their parents. Lyaella takes Aemon’s hand and squeezes it to warn him not to step any further, but he’s realized the same thing she has and makes no attempt to step into sight.

Lyaella can tell from the soft rustling sounds she hears that they’re probably cuddling on the cosy pallet. She feels a tiny bit jealous for a moment— she loves to sleep on the pallet and would’ve liked to have slept out there instead of in her bed— but then she remembers that she definitely wouldn’t have been able to sneak away if she was in Mother and Father’s chambers.

She looks at Brother. _New plan,_ she thinks. She guesses he might hear it. He nods like he does. They slip back into Lyaella’s chambers, taking care to close the balcony door very, very quietly so that Mother and Father won’t hear, and then they strip from all their cloaks but one. It’s cold up in the sky at nighttime, but not so cold in the regular outside. And the regular outside is where they’re going to have to go now.

“Temmo said once that he and Akko go to the riverside at night with the other boys,” Lyaella tells Aemon. “We’ve just got to get there…it’s not too far from the Garden, it’s just near the water behind Fishmonger's Square…but I don’t know how we’re going to sneak past _Nudho_ and _Mele Sōvegon_ and _Kasta Genes…_ ”

Grey Worm might be elsewhere doing more important things— he is the best soldier and the one Mother and Father trust with everything— but Red Fly and Blue Rat are always guarding their wing of Rhaella’s Fortress, and other guards are guarding the entrances to Rhaella’s Fortress, and even more are guarding the entrances to the Garden. Lyaella begins to feel hopeless.

But Aemon looks perfectly calm. He nods.

“Okay,” he tells her. “Got it.”

Lyaella furrows her brow. “You know how to get past them?”

Aemon nods again. He takes her hand again. “C’mon!”

He tugs gently on her hand, and she follows after him, curious and bemused. She trusts that he can do it— he can do whatever he puts his mind to— but she can’t think of how he’s going to. 

She should’ve known, though. Lying, of course.

The second Lyaella opens the door to her bedchambers, Aemon hollers: _“_ MOVE! MOVE!” Red Fly reverses a bit, clearly taken aback by Aemon’s urgency. Lyaella and Red Fly watch as Aemon jumps up and down in place, his hands closed over his privates. “MOVE! IT’S A ‘ _MERGENCY! MOVE!”_

Before Red Fly can do much more than part his lips, Aemon’s brushed past him and is bolting down the hall…and right past the privy. Lyaella sprints after him automatically, and Red Fly jogs behind them.

“Prince Aemon! The privy is right there!”

“IT’S BROKE!” Aemon exclaims, anguished. He slows long enough for Lyaella to catch up, and then he grasps her hand. “AELLA’S TAKING ME TO AWA’S!”

“It’s…what? Broken? What do you mean? How? Slow down!!”

Aemon utterly ignores him. He and Lyaella blaze past Blue Rat, past Qako, past Ser Leo. They barrel down the corridor of Arya’s wing, going so fast Lyaella feels almost like she’s flying. Each guard they pass joins the train of adults following them, so that by the time they slam the door to Arya’s privy behind themselves, there’s at least a dozen pairs of feet pounding after them.

Aemon pushes a chair over to the wash table and climbs atop it. He turns the spigot on; it sputters a few times and then begins pouring water into the wash basin.

“ _Ahhh_ ,” he says— very dramatically. Lyaella can’t help but giggle.

She thinks she understands. She looks at the window above the privy and then back at Brother; he’s grinning. He jumps down from the wash table, and Lyaella hugs him tight.

“You’re my clever brother, my best friend in the whole world,” she tells him, her heart so full. She thinks Aemon’s heart must be just as full because he kisses her face all over, smiling all the while. And then it’s back to their plan.

Aemon pushes the chair over to the window above the privy while Lyaella leans against the privy door.

“He’s washing his hands,” she yells through the door. She watches Brother climb atop the chair. “He’ll be done soon!”

“We’re sending for your parents. Is everything okay?” Red Fly worries. Lyaella hurries over to the chair as Aemon climbs from the chair to the back pillar of the privy, standing so high now that he’s much taller than Lyaella. “Princess Lyaella? Hello?”

“Me first,” Aemon says eagerly, and without pausing, he clambers through the window. Lyaella hears a _thunk!_ followed by the sound of Aemon laughing. Lyaella quickly scales the windowsill and leans out of the window to look down and check on Brother, but he’s fine: he’s lying on his back in the flowerbed below, giggling.

“That’s fun,” he hisses, his eyes sparkling.

As soon as he scoots over so he’s not directly below her, Lyaella carefully eases herself down after him. She lands on her feet, but it’s a hard fall, and her feet sting. Aemon jumps up before she’s even recovered; she hobbles after him as he darts from bush to tree, staying in the shadows and moving quieter than he’s ever moved before. Lyaella is good at being quiet, so it’s no challenge for her, and by the time they’ve made it to the main gate of the Garden, Lyaella feels like they’re invisible.

The main gate is the hardest part. There are dozens of soldiers here. Even Aemon looks uncertain.

“I don’t know,” he whispers, his dark brows furrowed and his expression troubled. His violet eyes dart from here to there, studying the things around them, thinking hard.

“We could try to climb?” Lyaella suggests. She surveys the wall. There are a few places they could hold onto, but they’d be seen in the bright moonlight. “Maybe we could wait for the gates to open up and sneak out?”

Aemon smiles suddenly, and at almost the same moment, the gates being to creak open. Lyaella thinks he’s somehow done it for a moment, and then he gives an excited gasp and whispers _AWA!!!_

It _is_ their Arya. She’s early; she wasn’t supposed to arrive until at least two more days, but there she is, stepping through the gates with Gendry. Her sudden appearance has completely rerouted Aemon’s thoughts and plans: he starts to bolt over to her, his entire body trembling with excitement, but Lyaella quickly reaches out and grabs him.

“She’ll bring us back,” she whispers to Aemon. “We can see her when we get back.”

“But… _Awa…_ ” Brother sighs. “Okay.”

Lyaella’s not sure why he’s even coming. He loves her with his whole heart— she knows that to be true— but he doesn’t like Akko and he _loves_ Arya, so it makes sense that he’d rather stay behind to see her than sneak to the river with Lyaella. She guesses his love and worry for her outweigh everything else, and she’s sort of right; he does love and worry for her. But there’s another reason he’s agreed to come along, and she realizes it as soon as they find Akko and his group of friends by the river. Aemon wants to fight.

“What are _you_ doing here?” Akko demands at once. He rises from the old log he’s sitting on and spins to face them, a look of pure disbelief coating his face. 

And Brother’s response is: “You’re _uggy_.”

Lyaella quickly tries to step in front of Aemon and fix what he’s said, but Aemon refuses to be moved. He stares Akko down while Akko’s older friends laugh at him. Akko’s skin darkens with anger and embarrassment.

“ _What_?” Akko snarls.

Aemon blinks. “You’re _uggy,”_ he repeats again, slower this time. “Hit me.”

He _can’t_ hit Aemon, though, and he knows it. If he so much as strikes Aemon, he’ll be in very, very big trouble. Aemon knows that. Akko knows that. Akko glares at Aemon.

“Your parents aren’t here right now,” Akko warns Aemon, after glancing carefully around them to be sure. “By the time they figure out where you are, you could be cut into a dozen different pieces and scattered around Flea Bottom.”

Those words send a chill down Lyaella’s spine, but Aemon laughs. No doubt he feels confident with the dagger at his waist and Lyaella’s sword at hers. And it’s true that Lyaella is good with her sword, and Brother is decent with the dagger (though not as good as he is with his bow; Auntie Arya calls him a natural bowman), but Akko is much bigger, and there are a half-dozen big boys just like him staring them down right now. They would not win. And maybe Mother and Father would execute Akko for hurting them, but they would still be dead.

“We didn’t come to argue,” Lyaella says. She looks down at Brother. “Stop it, Aemon.”

Aemon relents at once for her.

“Okay,” he says, his tone easy and cheerful enough.

Lyaella sucks in a deep breath. She takes a step forward, and even though Aemon takes one with her, he doesn’t try to start another fight.

“I’ve been thinking, and I know why you don’t like me. I’ve read all about the Dothraki. You follow strong people— the strongest, like my mother. And even though I’m her daughter, to you I’m just a little weak girl.” Lyaella’s certain of it. She’s been reading and thinking very hard about the situation, and it makes sense to her. She understands.

Akko scowls again. He says nothing, but he crosses his arm and keeps listening.

“But you’re really wrong, ‘cause I am strong. I don’t look like I am…I know that.” Grey Worm sometimes calls her _byka rūklon_ — little flower— and she knows why. She’s short and likely to always be, and she’s sweet-looking. She _is_ sweet. But just because she’s sweet doesn’t mean she’s not strong, too. “But I am. I can fight. I’ve been learning my whole life. My mother even learned when I was inside her belly so I was hearing lessons even before I was born. So I came to show you I’m strong enough for you to follow me.”

Akko laughs. And laughs. And laughs. Aemon mutters something under his breath and looks up at Lyaella, but she just shakes her head. She doesn’t laugh or smile or frown. She just waits. When Akko is done laughing, he turns and mutters something to Temmo. Temmo doesn’t look happy.

“No,” he tells Akko. “It’s a bad idea. If you hurt her, you’ll be in trouble.”

“No,” Lyaella swears. “I won’t tell Mother and Father what happened if I get hurt. But we aren’t hurting each other on purpose. We fight until someone says ‘I give up’. I’ll know if I’m losing…I’ll just give up. And then you can talk to me however you like because you’ll be stronger than me, and that’s what you believe, and I’ll just have to get stronger.”

Temmo still looks uneasy about it. Lyaella guesses he’s thinking about how furious Ezhi will be if she finds out her nephew had any hand in harming her. But Lyaella has no intention of being harmed. She’s not worried. If it’s just her against Akko, she knows she can win. She may be small, but she’s been training with her father all her life. She’s learned how to fight against Longclaw and Needle. She knows how to swordfight, and like most things, she does it well. And she’s done letting them win.

“The prince can’t be involved at all,” Akko demands. “He can’t help you, and he can’t say anything to your parents about it afterwards.”

Lyaella notices the tense hold of his jaw as he waits for her response. She lifts one of her eyebrows up.

“Are you scared of my brother?” she asks. The thought thrills her. “Good. You should be. But my brother won’t help, and he won’t tell our parents anything. Right, Aemon?”

Lyaella looks down at him. His face is covered with pure, innocent sincerity as he nods in agreement.

“But your friends can’t help you, either,” Lyaella continues. She looks at Temmo, and then she looks at some of their other friends. None of them look like they like this at all, and she sees three have already walked off quickly, no doubt not wanting to be mixed up in this. The Flea Bottom boys in the group are whispering worriedly off to the right. She doesn’t think any of them would raise a weapon against her anyway, but it doesn’t hurt to make the rules very clear. That’s the key part in making sure no one cheats. “All right?”

Akko is still suspicious.

“I’m not using a sword,” he tells her.

“No, of course not. You use your arakh, and I’ll use my sword.” She wishes hers had a name so it would sound more impressive, but she hasn’t decided on one yet. Father tells her it will come to her one day.

“Have you ever fought against someone with an arakh?” Akko asks.

“No,” Lyaella says honestly. She eyes the sharp, half-moon weapon. “But that’s okay.”

“And what happens when I win?” Akko persists.

“Then you proved you’re stronger than me and you don’t have to listen to me. And if I want you to follow me when I’m all grown up, the way your parents follow my mother, I’ll have to get stronger and earn it. That’s very fair.” It really is. She always wants to be fair and good, and so she spent a long time trying to make sure she fixed this problem in a fair and good way. She’s prepared for either outcome. She won’t cry if she loses. She’ll just work harder with Daddy and Arya and try again. “But if _I_ win, you have to follow me just like you follow my mother. No more meanness. Not to me, and not to my brother.” Though Brother can really take care of himself. He’s already proven that.

“What if you get hurt accidentally? How will you explain that to your mother?” 

Aemon answers. His voice is trembly and tearful when he speaks, showing Akko exactly the show he’ll put on for their parents. “We falled sneaking out and Aella got hurt!”

Akko turns his gaze to Aemon. “If I hurt your sister badly, you’re still going to lie?”

“Aemon and me— we’re a pair. We’ll be the king and queen one day. So if I want him to lie, he’ll lie forever and ever for me, as long as I want it,” Lyaella says firmly. She’d do the same for her brother because she’d do anything for him.

“But you aren’t gonna hurt her,” Aemon adds to Akko, confident and fierce. “You aren’t gonna win. Aella is.”

Lyaella believes that, too. But as Akko gets his arakh, the odds don’t seem in her favor. Despite Aemon’s confidence in her— and he is _very confident;_ Lyaella is certain the people watching must thing he was privy to this plan all along or maybe even came up with it himself with as unfazed as he is— she realizes this isn’t going to be like any training fight she’s had from Akko’s first strike. She always thought Father and Auntie Arya were fighting honestly with her during their training sessions, but she realizes quickly enough that they never were. They were letting her win. They can’t have been fighting truly: none of Father’s strikes were even a fifth so hard as Akko’s, and Father is _much_ stronger than Akko. Father’s arms are bigger than Akko’s legs! So why has Akko’s first blow against her blade sent her stumbling backwards?

She nearly falls, but she doesn’t let herself. She shakes her curls out of her face and strikes back, hitting the center of the arakh’s curve with her sword. But she might as well have not hit it at all; Akko’s hands hardly move.

 _Okay, not the center of the blade,_ she thinks. _Maybe the tip…but I can’t reach it…_

She is starting to doubt herself, and even feel a bit afraid. Akko’s blade slices towards her again, and she quickly lifts her sword up and blocks it, and for the next couple of moves, that’s all she can do. She blocks blow after blow, her arms growing tired, Aemon huffing and growling off to the side, Akko’s friends warning him that he should stop every few seconds. Lyaella realizes she’s not going to beat Akko by force no matter how much strength she musters, but as he continues landing the same hard, full-energy blows her way, she realizes he doesn’t have much in the way of strategy. He’s just hitting hard and fast the same way over and over again. And strategy is something Father and Arya taught her _lots_ about. Between each blow and each block, she looks up and studies Akko’s face in the few half-seconds she has before his next strike; she sees that his eyebrows are pursing more and more each blow, that his grimace becomes more and more pained, that the muscles in his neck are becoming tighter and tighter. _He’s getting tired,_ Lyaella realizes. Her hands hurt and her left elbow hurts bad— it feels tingly-hot, the pain stabby and searing— but she doesn’t feel that tired. Not like he is. She smiles.

“What— are— you— smiling— about?!” Akko demands, sweat plastering his dark hair to his forehead. He swings harder than ever, but it’s too hard, and he stumbles to the side with the weight of his arakh. Lyaella side-steps out of the path rather than block it with her sword.

“You’re very, very strong,” she tells him. She doesn’t sound out of breath much at all, and that makes her smile more. _I can win,_ she realizes then, and she feels a thrill of excitement shoot to the pit of her stomach. “But you didn’t pace yourself well, and that’s really important. My Father taught me that.”

Akko makes an angry sound, sort of a shouting scream. He lifts his arakh high above his head, and it’s his anger that alarms Lyaella. He looks like he really wants to slice her head right open. She doesn’t think as she hurriedly throws her arms up to bring her sword above her head to block the blow; she just knows she has to stop him. She’s not even surprised when the curve of the blade and the angle of his strike yanks her sword right from her hands. It makes sense that it did, and she can look back at her own action and see that there was no way that was a winning move for her. But she also knows that she didn’t really have another choice.

Her sword is ripped from her hands and thunks to the dry ground. Lyaella looks at it, and then she looks up at Akko. His chest is heaving, his eyes wild. Lyaella feels a lump at her throat and a burning at her eyes, but she fights it back so no one but maybe Brother can see it.

She knows she’s lost. She actually feels really unhappy about that, but she knows there’s nothing she can do about it. She just has to try harder next time.

“Good fight,” she manages. It’s not very loud because of the way her throat feels. She stretches her hand out to Akko, like Arya and Father always do to her after a match, but Akko doesn’t reach out to take it. Instead, his teeth grit, and he suddenly swings his blade forward again— towards her outstretched hand.

“HEY!” Aemon shouts furiously. Lyaella can’t even spare Aemon a look: she scrambles for her blade and lifts it just in time to block Akko again. She sees dirt flying Akko’s way— Aemon is kicking it at him— but Akko ignores it.

“You won! Stop!” Lyaella scolds Akko. “I give up!”

She feels frightened; he still looks very angry.

“You reached for your sword!” he yells, his eyes burning with hatred. He strikes at her again, and she jumps to the side to avoid being hit.

“No! I didn’t! I was gonna shake your hand!”

“ _LIAR_!” Akko accuses.

But she’s not lying. Maybe no one has ever shook his hand after a fight before…she understands how he could’ve thought she was reaching for her sword, but she just said she wasn’t, so why won’t he stop?

He inhales some of the dirt Aemon’s kicking at him, and he pauses long enough to cough. The tip of his arakh digs into the dirt as his arm lowers.

 _Hit him!_ Lyaella thinks, but it isn’t her thought. It’s Brother’s— he’s sharing it with her. Lyaella looks at Akko— doubled over, coughing hard— and she feels her tummy twist.

 _No,_ she thinks to Aemon. _I can’t…he’s not even fighting right now. He’s coughing…_

Brother growls and charges towards Akko, clearly deciding someone has to do something about him. But before he can reach him, Akko straightens suddenly and strikes out _hard_ , so hard and unexpectedly that Lyaella fumbles a bit with her sword. The curve of his arakh slams into the lower-middle of her blade and slides down it. She inhales in shock and pain as the tip of it tears into the side of her hand. Lyaella’s sword falls from her injured hand to the dirt once more. This time, Akko surges forward and snatches it up. Lyaella cradles her bleeding hand and looks up at Akko in shock. She can’t seem to say anything or move— but Aemon can. The sight of her blood sends him into a rage. He doesn’t seem to care that Akko has Lyaella’s sword _and_ his arakh; he kicks Akko’s legs and grabs fistfuls of his clothes and scales his back, climbing up his frame like a lizard. Akko tries to shake his body and knock Aemon off him, but Aemon bites into his shoulder like a little wolf. He hangs on with his teeth, and Akko bucks forward in an attempt to shove him off. Aemon just moves his teeth to another spot and bites harder. Akko finally flings Aemon from him with a loud cry.

“Are you _biting_ me?!” he screeches. He’s looking at Brother like he’s never seen anything like him in his life. Aemon jumps up from the ground charges towards him again like a feral beast, and while Akko dodges him (he seems unwilling to hit Aemon or push him down, probably because he’s afraid of him), Lyaella turns her focus to her wound. She lifts her injured hand up. It’s trembling very hard, and it feels like her heartbeat is inside her palm. She has blood flowing down her wrists, drenching the sleeve of her dress. She stares at it, and then she looks up at Akko. Her tummy feels sick.

“Why did you do that?” Lyaella asks. Her voice is quiet.

“Because you broke the rules,” Akko snarls. Even though she didn’t. He finally gets sick of dodging Aemon. He spins and points Lyaella’s sword at Aemon. “STOP OR I’LL MAKE YOU BLEED, TOO!”

Aemon’s trembling almost as hard as Lyaella’s hand, but it’s with pure rage. His eyes are wild. “You can’t talk to me! You _shut up! You stupid— uggy—_ my _fawder_ is gonna— he’s gonna _kill_ you! Daddy! DADDY! MAMMA! MAMMA! _FOSTFIRE_! GHOST! _DOGON_! _”_

Lyaella knows it’s just a coincidence, but right as Aemon begins shrieking for their parents, the sound of bells fill the air. They are the bad bells, the bells that only sound with something is very wrong. It takes Lyaella second to realize it must be because Mother and Father have realized they’re not in Rhaella’s Fortress anymore.

All Akko’s friends but two run off at once. Not one Flea Bottom boy stays. Akko backs away from Lyaella and Aemon, and then he looks at Lyaella’s bloodied hand and back at her blade. He seems to be fighting between his anger and fear. Finally, he backs up towards the fire.

“You lose,” he tells Lyaella. He spits at her; the glob of spit lands only a few inches from where he stands, but it’s still horrifically rude. Aemon snarls and lunges for him again, but Lyaella quickly reaches out and grabs his tunic with her uninjured hand and holds him back. 

Akko turns and throws her sword into the fire. A thousand beautiful copper sparkles surge into the air as it sinks into the flames. Akko grins smugly for the first time, and Lyaella begins to giggle.

It starts as one soft one and grows into many. She giggles and giggles, blood soaking her sleeve, amusement tickling her heart. Suddenly, she hears Mother’s words from before. When she called Akko a small man. And she understands completely. Though he’s at least two times her size, he appears so small to her then, and she feels big— like a giant. Like a winner. Because he just doesn’t understand at all. And she’s tried so hard to understand him, but he just doesn’t get her. But he’s about to.

“What?” Akko demands. He seems unnerved by her laughter. His smug smile slips away. “What’s funny?”

“ _You_ broke the rules,” Lyaella tells Akko. Brother is at her side and looking at her hand now, his own pressing worriedly over her wound, but she pulls it from his soft touch and approaches Akko. And the fire. “I was only trying to shake your hand, and you tried to hurt me when it was over and I didn’t even have my sword. So we have to go again. It’s a re-match.”

“No!” Akko snarls. “I didn’t, and I’m not! This is over, and you are _not_ going to tell your mother or your father! If you do, I’ll hurt you! I’ll hurt you so bad you cry so hard you can’t even breathe!”

She’s done that before from nightmares once. And there’s nothing in the world he can do to her that’s scarier than her dreams. So even that threat is funny, too.

“Your sword is gone, and I’m leaving,” he says.

Lyaella shakes her head. “It’s not gone,” she says. She steps closer to the fire. She can feel the wonderful heat of it. It’s just like a hug or a kiss. She sees the shiny silver of her sword right in the middle of the fire, resting atop two ember-filled logs, and she stretches her injured hand out. She doesn’t really want her cloak to burn up, but her sleeve has so much wet blood she thinks it might not. She can’t help but glance at Akko as she reaches right into the fire. He stumbles back, his eyes wider than she’s ever seen them.

More sparks fly into the sky as she grasps her sword. Her sleeve is smoking and sizzling as the heat from the fire burns her blood right up. The fabric catches flame near the top of her arm— where the blood hadn’t reached— and Lyaella slaps her other hand over it absently to put it out as she drags her sword out of the flames.

It’s hot and sooty as she lifts it up.

“Now we can have a re-match,” she tells Akko. She likes how shocked he looks. Maybe she’s showing off a bit as she raises her skirts high and steps back into the edge of the fire. It tickles nicely at her boots and legs. “If you’re stronger than me, come prove it. Come and get me.”

He doesn’t move.

“If you can’t, then you’re not stronger than me. I’m stronger than you. I’m your queen,” she continues. Her boots start to smoke. She ignores it. She doesn’t move at all until Akko sinks to trembling knees.

She smiles. She steps from the fire and slaps at her smoldering boots until they’re no longer at risk of catching fire, and then she nods at Akko.

“Get up,” she orders, and he does. “We aren’t going to tell our mother and father what you did. But you are going to give me respect and love. That’s _The End._ ”

Akko nods quickly. He’s looking at her like she’s a ghost. “Can I go?”

“Goodbye,” Aemon tells him, and Akko hurries off so quickly he forgets his arakh entirely. “ _Uggy_ baby.”

Lyaella looks at his forgotten arakh; she decides she’ll tell Mother and Father she was playing with it and got hurt by accident. She’s not sure they’ll believe her, but she feels like she handled the situation with Akko, and having him punished by her parents will just make her seem weaker to him. They can’t know about it.

She hears a twig snap. When she turns, she sees Ghost and Nymeria sprinting towards them, their hackles raised.

“Uh oh,” Aemon says.

Lyaella thinks he’s talking about the direwolves, but he’s not looking at them. He’s looking up. The night grows pitch black for a second, and Lyaella looks up, too. Drogon’s black shape travels across the moon again as he lowers towards them, angry, huffing sounds coming from his snout.

“We’re catched,” Aemon says.

“Caught,” Lyaella corrects automatically. She sighs. She sees the rest of the dragons only a little ways behind Drogon. They’ve got no chance to escape. When Drogon slams down a few paces ahead of them, Aemon and Lyaella hang their heads and trudge over to him. Ghost and Nymeria flank them on either side, and though Ghost and Nymeria don’t seem angry, Lyaella knows there’s no way they’ll be able to run away from them. Ghost licks at Lyaella’s wound as they walk, cleaning the blood and dirt from it.

As soon as they reach Drogon, he slams his wing down for Mother to climb down. Mother doesn’t look angry: she just looks relieved. Her eyes sparkle in the moonlight, and she slides from Drogon and runs over to them so quickly she’s just a pretty silver-white blur. Lyaella realizes she’s still in her night clothes as she sinks to her knees and yanks Lyaella and Aemon into a tight shared hug, her breath leaving her in a deep, intense gasp.

“What happened?! What are you doing out here?!” she demands. She pulls them back and studies them, and when she sees Lyaella’s still-bleeding hand, she looks like she might be sick. She lifts it up and dabs at the blood with the hem of her white shift, clearing the blood away enough to look at the wound. Lyaella looks, too. It doesn’t look so bad with the blood stopped. “Lyaella, who hurt you?!”

Lyaella parts her lips and starts to say that she hurt herself by accident— but Brother begins sobbing before she can. He throws himself against Mother and grasps the front of her shift with his fists, weeping so sadly it brings tears to both Lyaella and Mother’s eyes. Mother grasps him close to her heart automatically.

“I-I-I’M S-S-SORRY! IT W-W-WAS AN AXA— AN AXY— AN _AXDENT_! MAMMA, I SORRY!!”

His guilt and sorrow are completely genuine…except they’re not. Because he didn’t hurt Lyaella at all. Akko did. All he did was bite Akko, and Lyaella doubts he feels bad about that at all.

“What?! Aemon— look at me. What happened?”

Aemon takes a shaky breath and looks up at Mamma, his face shining beneath his tears. He holds to her hair like he used to do when he was little and still nursing, more tears swimming in his violet eyes. Mamma’s look just like his: teary and vibrant.

“We— we were _playing_ —!” He turns and looks at the arakh. Mother follows his gaze. “I-I-I sneaked! I sneaked out to s-s-swordfight! Aella tried to stop me!”

“No—” Lyaella starts to say, not wanting Brother to take all the blame, but he starts crying again before she can defend him.

“I-I W-WANT TO S-SWORDFIGHT LIKE D-DADDY!”

“Oh,” Mother says softly, drawing Aemon close in a tight hug. Lyaella watches his dramatics with a withheld sigh. “You always say you prefer your bow, Aemon. If you want to swordfight, of course all you have to do is tell us that…I don’t understand why you would sneak out. You know better. It’s not safe. Do you know how worried Father and I were? Father has all our soldiers searching Flea Bottom right now, and Auntie Arya’s got the Royalguard stopping all the carts and boats leaving King’s Landing. We were so afraid. We didn’t know what happened…we thought—” Lyaella feels her heartbreak as she sees a tear slip down Mother’s cheek. She wipes it away impatiently and takes a deep breath before holding tight to Aemon’s shoulders and continuing. “You mustn’t _ever_ sneak out again. Not _ever!_ Do you understand me, Aemon?”

She’s speaking sternly to Aemon, but Lyaella feels extreme guilt anyway. Because really she’s the one who did the bad thing Mother’s so upset about. And she had a good reason…she knows she did…and she thinks she’s fixed the problem with Akko, which means Mother doesn’t have to worry about her anymore, but she’s not sure how to be honest without betraying Brother’s plan or going against her vow to Akko. She wants to be a queen of her word…but she doesn’t want to be a queen who lets the king get in trouble for something that was her fault…they should be in trouble together. They do everything together.

“Mamma,” Lyaella whispers, and then she starts to cry. Her guilt is so big. “Mamma, it was me…I snuck out, too. Brother just came with me because he loves me…it wasn’t his idea. Don’t be angry with him, please…”

Mother beckons Lyaella closer and pulls her into her and Aemon’s hug, too. Her lips are soft and warm as they press to Lyaella’s forehead. She holds Lyaella’s chin gently afterwards, peering intently into her eyes. Lyaella feels like she can see right into her head. She thinks maybe Mamma always knew Aemon wasn’t being truthful.

“Why would you do that, Ly?” Mother asks seriously. “You _definitely_ know how unsafe it is. You absolutely know better than that.”

“I had to, Mamma. I heard you talking to Daddy before….you were worried about me…about me being a good queen, and I had to fix it. I had to show you I can do it. So I came here and I talked to Akko…and I fixed it. He kneeled to me. He won’t be mean anymore now. I’m sorry, Mamma…please don’t be angry…”

It isn’t anger she sees in Mother’s eyes. It’s fear. She looks between Aemon and Lyaella, and then she turns and surveys the campfire and the seats and tin plates scattered around it. It’s obvious a lot of people were here.

“You came here alone to talk to Akko?” she sounds like she doesn’t even want to hear the answer. Lyaella feels even worse. She looks at the ground and nods her head. “And how did this happen?” she touches Lyaella’s wounded hand gently. “And what is all this soot from?”

She wants to tell her the truth. But she doesn’t want them to punish Akko. She already did.

“It was…it was just…” she stops, unable to lie but unable to tell the truth.

“Brother didn’t do that, did he?” Mother presses knowingly.

“Brother never hurts me,” Lyaella defends at once. “Aemon did not do it.”

Aemon sighs heavily. He reaches up and presses the heel of his hand against his forehead, shaking his head in disbelief. It’s the same thing Daddy does every time Aemon is naughty.

“Akko did?”

Lyaella hesitates. “No…”

Mother’s frown deepens. “That doesn’t sound like the truth, Lyaella.”

“I’m okay, Mamma,” Lyaella says earnestly. She squeezes her injured hand shut. Pain flares up her arm, and she has to hop up and down to keep from gasping aloud. Her eyes are cloudy with tears as she says: “It doesn’t even hurt.”

She’s not a good liar like Brother. Mother doesn’t believe her. She gently kisses above Lyaella’s wound, her eyes still full of concern.

“It is _not_ okay,” Mother says gravely.

“Are you mad at me?” Lyaella worries.

“No. But we’re not done talking about this,” Mother tells her. She straightens and rises to her feet. “Come. We’re going home to talk to Father.”

Lyaella feels a burst of hot air against her back. She steps back blindly until she feels Moonbloom’s scales against her skin. Moonbloom nuzzles the top of her head, and it makes Lyaella almost cry. She wants to be with her. Moonbloom understands. She’s not angry with her at all.

“I want to ride Moonbloom back. Can I, please?” Lyaella begs.

“No,” Mother says at once. She hoists Aemon up and props him on her hip. “Come onto Drogon with us.”

Lyaella starts to say _but!_ …but then she sees Mother’s expression, and she decides not to. She joins Mother and Aemon on Drogon’s back. Moonbloom cries out in protest, her tone so shrill and angry it makes Lyaella shiver a bit.

“You hush,” Mother scolds Moonbloom. “She’s staying with me for now. Don’t argue.”

Moonbloom hisses and stomps, smoke furling from her nostrils. Frostfire starts to shriek, too, to back her up, but Mother silences both of them with a very _no-no!_ look. Lyaella can feel Moonbloom’s indignation as she flies behind them, but she doesn’t scream anymore. Frostfire tries to overtake Drogon and fly ahead of him— his own form of protest, Lyaella knows— but Drogon refuses to let him lead, going so far as to nip at his wing to get him back in line. Usually Lyaella finds Frostfire’s antics funny, but she doesn’t feel very giggly right now. She leans against Mother’s back and watches the city streaming below them, worried about what Father might say. What if he’s angry with her? What if he doesn’t understand why she did what she did? What if what she did was the wrong thing? What if he’s disappointed? What if he doesn’t love her anymore?

She worries so much that by the time they get back home, it only takes one frown from Grey Worm and one gentle scold from Davos to send Lyaella into a fit of tears. By the time Mother explains what she knows to Father, Lyaella is so upset she couldn’t answer Father’s questions even if she wanted to. She cries as Aethel cleanses her wound and puts two stitches into it. Brother holds her and strokes her hair, stoically refusing to crack beneath their parents’ interrogating. When Father lifts Lyaella up, she sinks into his embrace and weeps into his neck, her heart aching.

“D-Do you s-still l-love me, F-Father?” she weeps. “‘Cause I l-l-love you!”

Her own words upset her more, and she cries harder. Father squeezes her tight.

“Why would you ask such a thing? Of course I do, Ly. I love you now, and I’ll love you forever. But you need to tell us what happened.”

“I-I-I-I-I c-c-c-can’t!” It’s the truth. She can’t get any words out ‘cause she’s gasping so hard. She holds her throbbing hand up. “M-my h-h-hand h-h-hurts, D-D-Daddy.”

“I know it does,” Father says softly. He kisses her bandage. “I’m not angry with you. Mother isn't angry with you. Just tell us what happened when you found Akko, okay? Here, let’s sit together out here and talk, the breeze is nice.” Father carries her out to the soft pallet on the balcony. Lyaella grasps one of the soft blankets as soon as they’re sitting and pulls it up, wrapping it around herself as best she can. Father rocks her in his arms as Brother and Mother join them. Father was right: the breeze _is_ nice. It’s cool against her wet cheeks, and gradually, she begins to calm down. _Father isn’t angry. Mother isn’t angry. It’s okay. They’re going to understand…_

She finally tells them everything that happened. She starts at the very beginning— when she and Aemon snuck out of Arya’s privy window— and she explains all the things she was thinking and planning, all the things she wanted to achieve. Mother and Father listen carefully and don’t interrupt her once. When she’s finishes, they’re quiet. Mother strokes her hair and Father looks up at the sky, his brow furrowed as he thinks hard. He finally looks down at Brother, who’s snuggled to his side.

“You _bit him_ , Aemon?”

Aemon cranes his head back and looks up at Daddy. He holds three fingers up. “Three times!”

“You certainly sound proud.” Daddy’s voice is flat.

“I been wanting to bite him,” Aemon shrugs. He yawns. “Can I have a bath? I’m _seepy._ ”

Brother won’t go to bed dirty ever, and he got dirty on his fall from Arya’s chambers and his fight with Akko. Not as dirty as Lyaella, who’s covered in soot, but dirty enough that there’s no way he’ll agree to go back to sleep until he’s clean.

“In a bit. We’re still talking,” Father answers.

He says that, but for a long time, no one says anything. Father looks at Mother, and Mother looks at Father, and Aemon makes a face at Lyaella.

“You’re not even talking,” Aemon finally says. “I can have a bath now.”

Aemon is so excited for his bath that he just decides that’s what’s happening. He hops happily to his feet, but Father gently pulls him back down to sit beside them.

“No,” he repeats. “We _are_ talking. Mother and I are just thinking about what we want to say. The most important thing is this: you both cannot _ever_ sneak out alone ever again. Not ever. I don’t care what the reason is. Ly, I know what you were trying to do. I understand why. But it was so unsafe it makes Mother and I sick. So many things worse than _this_ —” he lifts Lyaella’s bandaged hand— “could’ve happened to you and Aemon. I know you’re getting older, and I know you’re going to be the queen one day, but right now, you’re still little. You don’t _have_ to fix problems. Mother and I will fix them. And we will fix this.”

Lyaella feels her heart jump. “No, Father. I already did. You can’t do anything to Akko. You can’t. ‘Cause I told him it’s over— and it is. I won, and he knows it…please don’t punish him, Father.”

“He cut your hand— you had to have _stitches_ , Lyaella,” Father says, his voice gruff. “We can’t allow anyone to harm you. The things he’s said and done to you are entirely unacceptable.”

“I’m okay, Daddy! He doesn’t scare me. I asked him to fight, and I fought well! He just didn’t understand me, but now he does! Okay? So it’s okay.” She twists in Father’s lap and holds his face in her hands. His beard tickles her palms. “Please, Father…if he ever says another mean thing to me ever again I’ll tell you _straightaway_ , and you can punish him, but I think I fixed it…can’t we just see if I fixed it?"

 _I’m learning,_ she almost says. She’s learning every day, and she loves to learn. But this way is much more complicated than simply reading books about ruling.

Father looks to Mother at that, and Lyaella turns and looks at her, too. Aemon’s moved to Mother’s lap, and she’s stroking his hair and watching Lyaella and Daddy.

“Dany?” Jon asks, unsure. “What do you think we should do?”

Dany bows forward enough to kiss the top of Aemon’s head. He smiles and loops his arms around her neck afterwards and hugs her as she presses another kiss to his face. He doesn’t seem upset at all about what’s happened. He just looks tired. Lyaella wishes she was more like that. She can’t stop worrying about what’s going to happen now.

“You’re our little girl, Lyaella,” Mother finally says. “I know sometimes you feel like you’re so much older than you are because you’re so clever, but you’re not yet old enough to be running off and making decisions like these on your own. So many terrible things could have happened to you two. I wish you had waited for us to handle it.”

Lyaella hears _but…_ even though it isn’t said, and then Mother does say it.

“But,” she continues. “You’re also the princess. And this was a matter concerning you and you alone. You wanted to fix it: I understand that. You tried to approach the issue in a way reflecting your understanding of the differences between you and Akko…and rather than simply telling him he must respect you because you’re the princess and people respect the princess in Westeros no matter how tiny she is, you showed him _why_ he should follow you. I respect that, and I respect you, sweetling. You know that I do. I never meant for you to hear what Father and I were talking about that day; I never meant that I didn’t believe you’d be a good queen. I just meant I worried you would get hurt because you’ve got such a sweet heart, and sometimes, people take advantage of that. Does that make sense?”

Lyaella nods. She thinks about when she’d tried to shake Akko’s hand. It makes sense.

“You’re growing, and I bet you didn’t tell Father and I about your plan because you knew we’d say no. Right?”

Lyaella nods again. Mother is so right that she feels like she’s right in her own head.

“And we certainly would have. And maybe that’s wrong, too. I don’t know. All I _do_ know is that I would’ve done the same thing as you. Yet I’m not certain I want you to be like me. The thought of you enduring anything I’ve had to endure is excruciating.”

For the first time, Lyaella _doesn’t_ understand her Mother. How could she say that? She’s the most wonderful person in the world.

“I want to be _just_ like you, Mamma.”

Mother’s smiling softly as she reaches out and strokes Lyaella’s cheek. Lyaella reaches up and holds her hand to her face.

“I know you do. And no matter what I fear, you are. We’re all learning, Ly…as you get older, I’m certain Father and I are going to struggle with seeing you as anything but our little baby girl. Please be patient with us. You were the miracle neither of us ever expected, and the thought of you or Aemon being hurt…it’s the most frightening thing in the entire world for us. And we’ve fought terrifying foes.”

Lyaella has no choice but to believe that. She sees the fear in Mamma’s eyes easily.

“We’re going to get better at giving you a bit more freedom, but you’ve got to understand that sometimes, when we say no, it’s because we know better. The outcome of tonight…it’s too early for us to say with any certainty what it will be, but I do know all the things that _could_ have happened. Good queens don’t put themselves at unnecessary risk. They know how important they are. And you are, Ly. Important.”

How could she feel anything but? Mother and Father are looking at her now like she’s magical. She doesn’t know why, but it brings tears to her eyes, and it makes her chest feel wide.

“We will wait to see what happens,” Mother decides. “We won’t seek Akko out tonight, and we will wait to see if your strategy worked. But if he says anything to you ever again—”

“I will tell you, Mamma,” Lyaella says earnestly. Tears spill over her eyelashes, but she ignores them. “I promise.”

Mother leans in and kisses her. “Good. I promise to do better listening when you have ideas that frighten me. And I need _you_ to promise that you won’t sneak off behind my back ever again.”

“We’re a team,” Father adds firmly. “A family. We make these decisions together. We keep each other safe that way. There have been so many times that Mother has saved me—”

“So many times that Father has saved _me_ —”

“And the key was that we were _together_. We’re so much stronger that way. Now it’s not just Mother and I anymore. It’s us, and you, and Brother, and Rhae. And if we all stay together— in everything— we’ll stay safe and strong.”

That makes absolute sense to Lyaella, and she agrees. She nods without hesitation.

“Yes, Father. I promise,” she swears.

Father hugs her tight and nuzzles his cheek against her face, tickling her with his beard. She giggles happily and reaches out to rest her palm over his heart so she can feel its beating. She likes to count three beats. Hearts are so strong. They’re what keep her family with her. And she can’t imagine being without them. Not like Mother was when she was little.

“And _you_ ,” Mother continues to Aemon, her tone firm. She pokes his belly gently, and Aemon starts giggling. “Don’t bite anyone again. It’s gross. You’re not a wolf.”

“Kind of,” Aemon argues slyly.

“Who knows the last time Akko bathed, and you put his shoulder in your _mouth_.”

It’s a much better way to get Aemon to never bite again than telling him it’s not nice. Aemon is very nice to nice people, but when someone is mean to him or Lyaella, he stays angry at them forever. He won’t care that biting Akko isn’t kind because Akko isn’t kind. But he definitely cares about biting dirty things.

Aemon gags dramatically. “Ew, Mamma! Ew! Clean my teeth! Clean my teeth, Mamma!”

“I will after your bath. But let that be a lesson.”

“Okay. I bite just over clothes,” Aemon says.

“ _No_ , I meant—” Mamma stops suddenly. She sees the way Aemon’s lips are curled up and the way his eyes are twinkling. He’s just kidding. She sweeps him up into her arms and kisses his nose. “You’re incorrigible.”

“Probly,” he agrees. He looks at Lyaella, his brow furrowed slightly in question.

“It means like…stubborn,” Lyaella explains. And kind of like _naughty_ , but she doesn’t want Brother to think of himself as naughty.

“Oh, yeah,” Aemon agrees.

Once they’re clean and in their nightclothes, they climb into Mother and Father’s bed. Lyaella and Aemon cry out with joy when Arya enters. She flops down on the bed beside them, and Lyaella and Aemon scramble and climb atop her, smothering her in hugs and kisses. Arya holds them close.

“Are you done getting in trouble?” she asks them.

Aemon nods happily. Lyaella is too embarrassed to say a word about it.

“Good. Now you can get in trouble with _me,_ ” she says, but she’s mostly teasing. Lyaella can tell because she tickles them after she says it and laughs along with their laughs. “I came _all the way here_ to see _you_ _two_ , and when I get here— after all my long, grueling travel— you’re missing!”

“It’s just two days,” Aemon shoots back.

Arya laughs loudly. “Oh, you’re a travel expert, you cheeky thing? You decide what journeys are grueling? You’re Master of Travel?”

“Two days is just… _seep_ , wake up, _seep_ , wake up,” Aemon persists.

Arya hoists Aemon up and flings him backwards over her shoulder. He giggles loudly and pounds gently at her back with his fists.

“We’ll see if it’s just _seep_ , wake up, _seep_ , wake up, when I bring you to Storm’s End and have you mopping for two days straight!”

“Nuh-uh! I’m a prince!”

“Prince of Mopping!”

“Nuh-uh! No!”

“Yep. Yes. Sorry,” Arya says gravely. “You shouldn’t have been cheeky to me.”

“ _No!_ Put me down! Put me down!”

“Nope,” Arya says. She pops the p-sound, and it’s so funny Lyaella begins to giggle. Arya winks at her and hugs her again, and Lyaella clings to her, her heart full of love. “Prince Aemon. The Cleaning Prince. The Servant Prince.”

“The _Dagonwoof_!” Aemon argues. He squirms so wildly that Arya lets go of him, letting him flip over her shoulder and land behind them on the pillows. He climbs up her and sits on her shoulders right afterwards, his arms hugging her head.

“Ow, could you act less feral, please?” Arya says, wincing.

“Are _you_ telling my son to act less feral?” Jon teases. “You? _Arya_? Or, wait— I’ve forgotten. You’re a sophisticated lady now, beloved by your people.”

“Who used the word _sophisticated?”_ Arya scoffs. “Not Gendry.”

“Where _is_ Gendry?” Lyaella asks eagerly. She wants to tell him how good her sword did.

“He’s fetching me eggs,” Arya answers. “So, incidentally, he’s the Servant Lord right now. You’ve lost that title for now, Aemon.”

“ _Dagonwoof_ ,” Aemon repeats fiercely.

“Eggs? Why?” Lyaella demands. Eggs are ick. They’re slimy babies, cracked open and eaten. She never eats them.

“Because I want them. Why do you think?”

Aemon lays over the top her head and tries to look over her forehead and catch her eyes. All he manages to do is send Arya crashing forward. She catches herself with her hands, and Aemon lowers back down to sit on her shoulders rather than climbing over her head.

“Yes, Aemon?” she asks dryly. “Did you need something?”

“It’s the night. Not egg-time,” Aemon says.

“Oh, _now_ you’re the keeper of mealtimes! I can have eggs when I want eggs.” She looks down at Lyaella. “How do you manage him?”

Lyaella giggles. Aemon doesn’t find it funny.

“ _Siser_ loves me,” Aemon says, offended. He flops off Arya’s shoulders and squirms over to Lyaella, throwing his arms around her. Her heart swells up as she hugs him back tight. “Right, Aella? Right?”

“So so so _so_ much!” she affirms. He smiles and kisses her, and she’s giggling as she kisses him back. It turns into a kiss war; Mother stops it by pulling Lyaella over into her lap. She brushes her damp curls over her shoulders gently and kisses her cheek.

“We should go to sleep now. We have a busy day of preparations ahead of us.”

Aemon lays over Arya’s lap and hugs her waist. “Stay, _Awa_.”

“Until you fall asleep,” Auntie Arya agrees, and Lyaella and Aemon hurry over and curl up on either side of her at once.

“But don’t eat eggs here,” Aemon warns her.

“Just for that, I’m going to eat my eggs right over your clean hair.”

“ _Noooooo! Stop, Awa!_ Go to _seep_! _”_

 _“You_ go to sleep,” Arya shoots back.

“I’m _tying_ …” Aemon grumbles. Arya laughs.

She and Brother hold hands over Arya’s heart. Lyaella falls asleep almost at once; her dreams pull her down deep. In them, Brother holds her close and sways with her in a burning room. They dance and spin and laugh and smile….the fire feels like kisses. They dance until the floor crumbles to ash beneath them, and then they fall down, down, down…they fall down towards the bottom of the sea, but the water isn’t water, it’s minuscule pieces of colored glass sparkling and shimmering all around them. They float together in its currents, and it’s soft like silk. The fish that pass them by are made of ice and embers, and every time Brother laughs, rubies and sapphires tumble from his lips. Soon, there’s a pile of them at the very bottom, and inside that glittering pile, they see a wink of something metallic. It’s red, black, silver…it’s for them to get…but every time they try to swim down to it, they just float right back up again. Then Rhae swims towards them from the other side of the sea, and she scoops the horn right out of the rubies and sapphires, and she carries it to them. _We won,_ Aemon beams. _We won! We won! We won!_

The sound of her own delighted laughter wakes her up. Brother snuggles closer to her and wraps his arms around her, and Lyaella slips right back to sleep, her dreams forgotten.

V.

Dany feels her stomach twist with nausea the moment the wine is uncorked. She pushes her goblet away as Tyrion makes his way around the table with it.

“No, thank you,” she declines. She sets her elbow against the tabletop and rests her face in her hands for a moment, breathing through her discomfort. She feels Jon set his hand on her thigh, and a question follows: _are you feeling sick again?_

She reaches beneath the table and sets her hand atop his. She squeezes it gently. _Yes._

 _Worried?_ Jon guesses.

She is. But she doesn’t think it’s just that. She’s been feeling this way on and off lately. _Perhaps. Or perhaps you’re right about Rhae after all, Maester Jon._

He turns his hand over and brings her hand up to his lips. She exhales as he gently kisses the back of it. For a time, as Tyrion, Davos, Arya, Grey Worm, and Gendry ramble on about the events that transpired earlier with Lyaella and Aemon, all she can do is breathe through her nausea and listen. They’re all as appalled with what happened with Akko as she and Jon were. Grey Worm worries over what could’ve happened to Lyaella and Aemon, Tyrion weighs the ‘political’ pros and cons of Lyaella’s little ‘battle’, Arya rages on about how Akko should be punished, and Gendry voices his appreciation at least three times for how brave Aemon had been. Davos shares his disappointment and concern for how easy it was for Dany and Jon’s children to sneak out, which sends Arya onto another rant about the Royalguard’s ‘lackluster efficacy’. By the time a mug of ginger lemon tea is brought to Dany at Jon’s request, it’s all she can do to get herself to sip at it rather than gag. Finally, after forcing half the mug down gradually, her stomach begins to settle somewhat.

“We must keep an eye on Akko,” she decides. “We’ll have someone keep watch over him. Jon and I have already decided Lyaella and Aemon aren’t to leave our sight from now until we leave. If that boy plans some sort of revenge—”

“I’ll kill him,” Arya interrupts, her voice close to a snarl.

“Jon’ll beat you to it,” Dany assures her. “But no matter what Akko intends, he’ll never have a chance to harm her. She’ll be with us at all times.” _And I won’t ever let something happen to her. I would sooner stab myself in the heart again._

“And I’ll be watching over her at all times,” Grey Worm promises. “I never liked him. I don’t like Regin’s boy that is friends with them, either. Rogier.”

“I never liked Temmo,” Jon admits.

“Lyaella seems to think the problem was dealt with,” Dany reminds them. “It’s my experience that men like that rarely change unless faced with something powerful and inexplicable. But it’s also my experience that my daughter is powerful.”

Arya looks troubled for the first time. Her anger gives way and reveals it. “She’s just so little. So…”

“Precious,” Grey Worm and Davos chorus.

Arya nods. “She doesn’t appear intimidating at all. Gods know it doesn’t help that she’s been known to go around Flea Bottom rescuing damn rats and mice.”

It’s exactly what Dany was worrying about earlier.

“I know,” she agrees. “That’s what she was trying to fix.” _Which was my fault. I should have been more careful about what I said around her._ Dany feels another wave of nausea when she thinks about her daughter thinking her mother doesn’t trust her or believe in her. Nothing could be farther from the truth. She just doesn’t trust the world, at least not with something as near and dear as Ly. That guilt-ridden fear is also why she’d insisted they wait and give Lyaella’s ‘solution’ a chance before swooping in and punishing Akko themselves; she wants her daughter to feel that she believes in her, that she trusts her.

“I think it’s a good thing,” Tyrion finally says, and every head snaps in his direction. “I truly do. She’s shown us two very important things. Three, really. One: she’s brave enough to do what must be done— or, well, what she _thinks_ must be done. Two: she’s smart enough to try to appeal to ‘enemies’ based on what they believe. And three: she’s sensitive to what others perceive of her.”

“Four: she and Aemon enable each other,” Arya adds.

“We already knew that one,” Tyrion snorts. “Have you seen them at mealtimes? Ghost has probably gained fifteen pounds just this year from all the unwanted food they smuggle beneath the table for each other.”

If Daenerys ignores the emotional aspects of what happened, she can see Tyrion’s points. But more than anything, she can’t stop thinking about what _could have_ happened. And it’s enough to twist her heart in her chest, enough to make her sick again. She can’t be glad Lyaella confronted him. Even if it somehow wins over all the boys like Akko, she still won’t be. She guesses part of the problem is that she still doesn’t see Lyaella as old enough to need to deal with her own problems that way. She doesn’t like the fact that she did, simply because she feels that’s _her_ job. Dany never had a mother to help her with her problems. She never had a mother to fix things for her, to protect her, to make sense of a confusing adult world and shield her from it. She had to take care of herself and find ways to survive her entire life…she had to deal with things she never should’ve had to deal with. She wants better for her children. She wants them to be _children_ , to play and laugh and learn and not worry about anything— and certainly to never put themselves at risk for anything. She’s going to have a lot more trouble letting go as Lyaella grows than she thought she was.

Her stomach is bothering her again, and her tea is gone. She listens to the continuing conversation about Lyaella and Aemon for a bit longer, and then she stands. Jon reaches up and touches her hand questioningly.

 _I’m going to bed,_ Dany tells him. _I don’t feel well. Are you coming?_

Jon looks over at the documents Davos has pulled out. Dany hadn’t even realized he had. She frowns. _Do you need me to—_

 _No,_ Jon promises her. She feels a rush of love and concern, an embrace of pure affection. _Go. I’ve got it. I’ll be there in a moment._

Dany’s relieved, and she shares that feeling with him. He squeezes her hand. And though they’re only a few steps away from the bedchambers— having elected to meet in the solar rather than the council chambers to stay close by Aemon and Lyaella in the wake of their great escape— and though he’ll undoubtedly join her in only a few minutes, she feels a sting of longing for him, anyway.

Arya rises as Dany reaches the door.

“I’m going, too,” she tells Gendry, and when Dany looks back, she sees the two of them share a brief yet meaningful look. Arya nods, and Gendry nods back, the corners of his lips tilted up somewhat in a half-smile. Dany’s discomfort is soon outweighed by her curiosity. She waits for Arya, and as soon as they’re outside the solar, she lifts her eyebrows.

“What was that?” she asks her.

Arya feigns confusion. Dany sees right through it. “What was what?”

Dany gives her a look, but doesn’t push. If it’s something Arya wants her to know, she soon will.

And she soon does. They step onto the balcony after checking on Aemon and Lyaella, who are still snuggled together in the middle of Jon and Dany’s bed and sleeping soundly, and Dany can see Arya is brimming with something— something she wants to share.

“What?” Dany asks softly. She sinks down onto the padded bench and curls her legs beneath her, and then she pats the space beside her. Arya joins her. “What is it?”

She knows it’s something. Arya rose at the first opportunity to be alone with Dany, and she looks like she could burst any moment with whatever it is she’s hiding. Dany waits patiently. As she watches her sister struggle for the right words, she thinks she already knows. It hadn’t occurred to her until that very moment, but abruptly, she’s certain. She feels her heart jolt.

“You’re pregnant.”

Arya’s posture relaxes with visible relief.

“I didn’t want to tell you and Jon through a raven,” she says. “I just couldn’t. I had too much to say, but I couldn’t find the words." She sounds apprehensive, almost like she fears Dany might be hurt by her not telling them sooner, but nothing could be further from the truth. Dany seizes her in a tight, reassuring hug at once, and Arya sinks into it. She presses her face against Arya’s hair and smiles, her heart warm and fit to burst, excitement surging through her veins. She’s had many conversations about children with Arya over the past three years, and she knew she was warming up to the idea— largely thanks to Aemon’s adorableness and Lyaella’s frequent, endearing anecdotes about Arya and Gendry’s future children— but she hadn’t realized it would be _soon_. But she realizes she should’ve. She’s known that Rhae and Arya’s son would one day be very close; it suddenly seems obvious to her now that they’d be born around the same time. Maybe she’s always known it. Maybe she’d been shown it before in a dream.

“How do you feel?” Dany asks her. She pulls back enough to look down at her sister. She’s still smiling as she brushes her hair back from her face. “Are you happy?”

“I _think_ so…I don’t know. Sometimes I am. And sometimes I’m terrified.”

“You’re going to be a wonderful mother, Arya.”

That comment soothes some quiet, withheld worry; Arya seems less worried after it. She sits taller and a bit of the fear edges out of her eyes. Behind it, Dany can see flickers of excitement.

“Most of the time I just feel sick and tired. It’s much different than I thought it’d be,” she admits. “Our maester back home gave me medicines, but they taste _awful_.”

Dany lets her arms fall from Arya’s shoulders, but she takes her hand and clasps it warmly between both of hers instead.

“We’ll go see Aethel in the morning. She’ll have something you’ll like, I’m sure of it.”

 _If I still feel poorly tomorrow, I’ll likely need some of it, too,_ Dany thinks, but she doesn’t voice any of her suspicions about her own pregnancy to Arya. She doesn’t want to take the focus from her right now. She’s been pregnant three times now; this is Arya’s first time, and Dany remembers how uncertain it can feel. She’s determined that Arya won’t feel lonely or scared for a moment of it.

“Gendry must be beside himself with excitement.”

“He wants to tell everyone we meet,” Arya says dryly. She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. “He’s been begging me to tell you and Jon since the day we found out.”

Dany laughs. “Wait until you see how happy he is the first time he holds his child. It’s unlike anything else.”

Daenerys thinks of Gendry the evening he and Arya were finally wed, nearly a year ago now. He’d shone with such honest joy. He (and Arya) didn’t stop smiling the entire day. This joy, though, will bypass it. Dany still feels her heart soak through with love at the thought of the way Jon cradled Lyaella to his chest on that boat, the gentle press of his lips to her bloody scalp, the shaky exhalation he’d given, like he’d never experienced relief greater than the relief he’d felt the moment she finally cried. Or the thought of Jon cradling Aemon in that bathtub, tears tracking his face as he stroked Aemon’s dark hair and kissed his tiny cheek.

“What you’re going to feel, too, is unlike anything else,” Dany continues. She can still feel it now, that deep, aching love. Love that oftentimes feels so fierce it’s overwhelming (and sometimes terrifying.) Love so sweet and pure it’s nothing short of a gift. Nothing could’ve prepared her for that rush she felt the first time her newborn was placed into her arms, and nothing in the world could ever match it.

Arya grimaces. “Yes, I’m not looking forward to the pain.”

Dany smiles softly. “I wasn’t talking about the pain.”

There’s pain, and plenty of it. But it’s nothing compared to the love. That’s something else Dany’s not sure she can explain to someone who’s never experienced it.

“The pain will feel greater than anything you’ve ever felt— it’ll feel… _big_ , like it’s this…entity of its own. But then…when you hold him, Arya…it’ll all just crumble to dust. Everything else. The pain turns miniscule. It’s just you and your baby, and it’s like…” her throat narrows and her eyes burn; she’s not sure how to put it into words. “It’s like…everything in the world becomes simpler. And more terrifying. Everything that matters is in your arms.”

That realization is comforting because it makes it easy to see what’s important and what’s not, but it’s also petrifying. Because children are so frighteningly fragile— yet so unbelievably important and precious. Dany had never known anything in the world to be so pure or so perfect.

“I’m scared,” Arya admits. She looks down at their hands. “I always thought…” she stops and starts again, clearly fighting back some emotion she doesn’t want to feel. “It’s difficult to not have my mother here for this. I never imagined how much that would hurt.”

Dany’s throat narrows and tightens. She’s not sure why. She never had her mother there for anything, so she can’t remember having moments during her pregnancies where she felt that as keenly as Arya currently does. She realizes after a few moments that it’s Lyaella she’s thinking of. She’s thinking of one day when Lyaella has children— about how deeply she wants to be there for her during that process, to take care of her and protect her and comfort her and reassure her…mothers and daughters should never be separated. Mothers and daughters belong together— always. Dany feels a type of sorrow she’s never felt before at the thought of leaving her daughter alone to experience _anything_ difficult, but especially something like childbirth. Something Dany should be there to walk her through, to help shoulder the pain of in any way she can. Certainly Catelyn felt the same way about her daughters. Death is cruel to pry a mother from her daughter’s life.

There’s nothing she can do to bring Catelyn Stark back, but she can comfort Arya, and she does. She holds her and tells her she understands. And she promises what Arya certainly already knows: that she’ll be there for her every moment of everyday. If that means she has to have her baby on Storm’s End, too, she will.

“Have you told Sansa and Bran yet?” Dany wonders.

“No. I haven’t told anyone but Gendry and you,” she admits.

Dany thinks Sansa is going to be _too_ excited— it might aggravate Arya. She might see that excitement as Sansa being somewhat smug about Arya finally doing something she’s been nagging her about, as if Sansa had a role in it happening. Arya won’t like that much. Bran will be happy, but it’ll be a quiet, surface-level happiness. He hardly visits anymore, and he seems more and more withdrawn every day. Attempts to change that have all fallen short. Arya and Gendry were married in Winterfell, and while they were all North for the celebrations, Jon, Arya, and Sansa spent weeks trying to help Bran or at least cheer him up, but they made little progress. Aethel sends him different tinctures, teas, and medicines often, but Dany has a suspicion Bran doesn’t take any of them. Dany and Jon have begged him to move South (so that they might keep a closer eye on him and try to help with whatever it is he’s struggling with), but he refuses. The news of Arya’s son will likely not change much for him.

But it’ll change a lot for Dany and her family. She can’t stop smiling at the thought of how excited Lyaella and Aemon are going to be. And Jon…

“Are you going to tell Jon? Or do you want me to?” Dany asks.

“I will,” Arya nods. “Tomorrow, as soon as I get the chance.”

“All right,” Dany smiles. “He’s going to be thrilled.”

“He’s going to worry,” Arya frowns.

“Well, yes,” Dany agrees. She feels her heart inch down a bit….if she really is pregnant, and her time comes close to Arya’s, Jon is _certainly_ going to be overwhelmed. “But he’ll be happy for you above all else. And Lyaella is going to be _ecstatic._ She’s very baby-eager. She asks me all the time when Jon and I are going to make Rhae.”

“I’ll bet she does,” Arya laughs. “She’s asked Gendry and I when we’re making our babies on a number of occasions. Gendry finds it particularly humorous.”

“It must be so strange to her. All these people have been real to her all her life, but she’s spent most of that life waiting on them.”

Arya frowns. “It’s sad when you say it like that.” She nudges Dany jokingly. “Go make Rhae for Lyaella.”

“Jon and I might already have,” Dany shares. Arya’s eyebrows lift. “I don’t know for certain, but I’ve felt off.”

Arya thinks the same thing Dany did before. She shakes her head. “Gods help Jon.”

“He’ll be fine. He’s not nearly as frightened of the process now after Aemon. Neither am I, in fact.”

“Can’t say I feel the same way,” Arya admits.

Dany hugs her to her side. “Well, you wouldn’t, would you? It’s your first time. It’s going to be okay, though. Either I’ll hold you hand through this or we’ll hold each other’s hands.”

Arya smiles. “I suppose it would be nice to go through it with someone that way. We can be huge and miserable together.”

Dany laughs. While going through her fourth— and almost certainly last— pregnancy with Arya pregnant right alongside her sounds wonderful, it’s really Rhae she’s happy for. No matter how much knowledge and preparation she and Jon arm themselves with, she’s a bit nervous about having a baby who can’t hear. She’s so afraid she’ll mess up, that Rhae will feel lonely or left out— so afraid she’ll feel _outside_ of them and the rest of the world somehow. Lyaella tells her she won’t— she tells her they learn to talk to Rhae in their heads, and considering that Jon and Dany have been doing that for three years now, she’s sure that’s probably true— but she still worries about how Rhae will fit in with other people, people who can’t talk to her the way the Targaryens can. It’s such a relief to know that she’ll have Arya’s son as a lifelong companion and friend, someone who undoubtedly will be born the same way as her and will be able to share in her life experiences in ways Lyaella and Aemon might not.

But Dany says nothing about that right now. Though Arya’s been updated on the current theory that Spring Fever is the cause of it all, Dany’s not sure she’s come to any certain terms about it and how it might impact her. Lyaella’s not said either way whether Arya’s son can hear or not so Dany supposes it’s possible that he can. Selfishly, a small part of her desperately wants him to be like Rhae. She knows it’s terrible of her. She’d never admit it to anyone but Jon.

She and Arya sit on the balcony and talk for a while longer, and then they part ways for bed. Dany slides beneath the warm covers and curls her body around her children, comforted by their steady breathing. She drifts to sleep feeling thankful.

VI.

Jon wakes early to the sound of the bedchamber doors closing.

His first thought is that his children have snuck out again, and he jolts upright, seized with panic. But as he turns to check the bed, he sees his son and daughter are still within reach. They’re curled together in the center of his and Dany’s bed, the moonlight glowing against Lyaella’s silver curls. It’s Dany’s side that’s empty.

Jon assumes she’s gone to the privy and relaxes back against the pillows, but he doesn’t fall asleep. He hovers somewhere between as he waits for the sound of Dany’s return. Right when he’s beginning to worry, he hears the door creak open. It whispers as it brushes over the thick carpet, and then he hears a soft click as Dany eases it back shut. He opens his heavy eyelids and watches her pad back over to the bed. He reaches over their children as she settles back against her pillows; she takes his hand and brings it to her lips. Her eyes close as she kisses the back of it.

 _Still feeling sick_? Jon asks her. It’s exceptionally easy to speak this way when they’re so tired— easier than speaking, in fact. They often take advantage of that fact. They’re able to talk about anything they want without fear of the children overhearing or waking, and as he tangles his mind with hers— as cosily as if they were twining legs beneath the covers— he feels the subtle tug of briefly-abated nausea in her gut.

 _I’m okay,_ she answers. He feels a strange mixture of trepidation and excitement, but its origins are not his own mind or heart. It’s shared with him. _I don’t think it’s just from worrying._

He smiles sleepily. He gently withdraws his hand from her lips so he can bring it to the side of her face. He strokes her soft cheek, her hair, the gentle curve of her neck… _I love you,_ he thinks.

He feels her cheek rise as she smiles. He brushes his thumb across of her smiling lips, tracing each soft curve, his heart soaked through with so much love he’d like nothing more than to climb over their children and crush her to his chest in a fierce hug.

 _I love_ you, she shares, but he already knew that.

 _Do you need anything?_ he asks. He thinks about their upcoming journey and frowns. _We should go to Aethel tomorrow and get nausea tinctures just in case. I don’t think being on a boat is going to help matters much. I’m sorry._

 _For?_ she challenges, and he feels warmth flood their chests as they both laugh. _For creating Rhae?_

His smile stretches so wide over his face it makes the muscles in his forehead ache. His fondness consumes his heart. _Well, no. But maybe for it happening right now before our trip._

_We knew it would, didn’t we? You said it yourself. Three, three, three._

_Ah,_ now _you admit it,_ he teases. He strokes his fingers over her collarbones, over her right breast, over her sternum— seeking out her heart. He slides his hand beneath her shift and caresses along her scar with his thumb. He yawns. _You’re as stubborn as Aemon._

 _That child is all you,_ she refutes, and with that comment, he feels an intense surge of love. Love for Aemon, for him. For Lyaella. For their family. The same comes from him so that, for a time, they lie together bobbing close to sleep, waves of pure adoration and deep, unrivaled love crashing over them. It’s a far-cry from how they’d fallen asleep earlier in the night, racked with uncertainty over how they’d handled Lyaella and Aemon’s misbehavior, worrying over their own effectiveness as parents. Perhaps they worried themselves out or perhaps they’re just too tired to keep on harping over everything they said or did; Jon feels no sting of regret or anxiety of the like that haunted him last night, and he can’t feel any coming from his wife, either. But then, he also vaguely remembers his dreams…R’hllor had been there. Maybe he’d showed them something, talked some sense into them…maybe he’d reassured them. If he had, Jon doesn’t remember the specific assurances. He just feels at ease. He falls back asleep with his hand still inside her shift. Maybe they dream together; he feels her with him somehow, and when he wakes sometime later, he doesn’t feel he’d been away from her for any time at all.

She’s unwell on and off throughout the day. They keep Aemon and Lyaella at their sides as they work on finalizing all the things left to tend to before they leave. Lyaella doesn’t whine about her hand once, but the sight of her bandage causes Jon to feel a surge of pain and rage every time he sees it; he makes a point to stay far away from the place Akko’s family lives. He’s not sure what he might say, what he might do. And he and Dany told Lyaella they’d try to follow her lead on this one. That’s difficult enough in itself.

They go to the scholarhouse with Lyaella later that afternoon so she can attend lessons. They usually leave her and Aemon here and go about their own tasks, but Jon’s not ready to let them out of his sight yet. He and Dany sit in the back to supervise; Jon thinks it makes the scholar and maester leading today’s lessons a bit nervous, but Dany assures them they’re only there to keep an eye on their ‘mischievous’ children.

Lyaella, of course, shows none of her mischievousness here. She comes alive in the scholarhouse, chattering with pure, endearing enthusiasm to the maesters and scholars as she asks them question after question, bouncing from friend to friend as they work their way through a text. The book itself is far too easy for Lyaella, but never shows that or boasts about it. After she’s journeyed to each friend at each table, the maesters pull her aside and give her a more challenging book to work on, and she curls up in the windowsill eagerly. You’d think she was handed a pouch of sweets for how pleased she looks.

And then there’s Aemon. Dany and Jon try to observe rather than interfere, but they have to corral Aemon quite a few times. He breezes through the book given to him with supreme boredom— though whether he’s read it or just flipped through the pages, Jon’s not sure— and then he squirms out of his seat and tries to sneak over to the shelf of books for the older kids, the shelf the maesters won’t even let Lyaella pull from. Lyaella’s perused a few with Jon and Dany or Tyrion, but Jon knows her curiosity is simply academic: Aemon’s, no doubt, is simply from the fact that he knows he’s not allowed to read them. Jon pulls him off the shelf and carries him right back to his seat, and there he rushes through his numbers, and then he goes over to the windowsill to bother Lyaella. His attempts to get her to put her book down and play are futile; after tugging gently on her curls and pulling on her hand to no avail, he gives up. He then goes up to the few kids he likes to play with— about five of them— and attempts to get _them_ to ignore their studies and play, but Dany snatches him up before he can.

“Stop causing trouble, Aemon,” she orders.

“I’m _bored_ , Mamma,” Aemon complains. He squirms unhappily in her arms. “I’m done with learning.”

Dany carries Aemon back to his seat, and he and Dany sit with him at the small table. The scholar brings over another stack of work for Aemon, and he visibly scowls at him.

“Aemon,” Jon scolds quietly.

With great effort— so great it looks genuinely painful— he turns his scowl into a tight smile.

“Here,” Dany says, pushing an additional page of numbers in front of Aemon. “Let’s do this, and then you can be done for the day.”

Aemon stares at it. He huffs. “No, Mamma. I already did that.”

He slides beneath the table and lays face-down on the carpet.

“Get up, Aemon,” Dany orders, sighing.

“Why?” His voice is muffled.

“Because you’re in your lessons. You’re not here to lay beneath the table.”

Aemon’s grumbling as he moves back into his seat. He crosses his arms and glares at the work.

“Can’t do it,” he says.

“Yes, you can. You did the first page, and it’s just like this,” Jon points out.

“But I _already did it_!” Aemon repeats, frustrated. “I want to go see _Fost. Please,_ Daddy— I’m so _bored_ — I’m gonna _die_. I hate this place, hate, hate, hate, _hate_!”

“You stop that,” Dany scolds.

He drops his face quite dramatically to the tabletop. Jon and Dany share a quick look. Jon doesn’t want to let him leave, but he also senses pushing him right now is only going to make Aemon dig his heels in and be more stubborn.

“Here,” Dany says, and Aemon looks up hopefully as she begins ripping the page. But she’s only ripping it in half, so that half the tasks are on the first half of the paper and the other half are on the bottom. She pushes one half in front of Aemon and one in front of Jon. “Race Daddy.”

Aemon stares at her. “Good try, Mamma.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” Dany enthuses.

“No. Daddy’s big. Not fair,” Aemon points out. Jon thinks that’s a decent point. Aemon throws his head back in the seat and groans. He spots something behind him; he jolts upright with an excited gasp, and then he slides off his chair and goes bolting towards the door. “ _Awa! Gendy_!”

He clearly thinks he’s being rescued from his boredom by them. He hugs them both and then calls excitedly for his sister. She carefully saves her place in her book and hops down from the window seat to run over and greet Arya and Gendry, too, though after a few quick kisses and hugs, she returns right back to her spot. Aemon’s already convinced Arya and Gendry to take him to the Dragonpit by the time he drags them over to the table Jon and Dany are still sitting at. Jon shares an annoyed look with his wife.

“He can’t go yet,” Dany says firmly. “He has to finish his studies.”

“ _Nooooo_!” Aemon whines. “Please, Mamma, _no!_ I can’t! I’ll _die_!!”

“You’ll _die_?” Gendry demands. He hoists Aemon up with one arm and swings him around wildly; Aemon’s howls of protest turn into giggles. “You’re not very strong then, are you?”

“I am! I am stong!”

“Not if that piece of parchment is doing you in, A,” Gendry says gravely. “What song should Lyaella play at your funeral?”

Lyaella hears _that_. “What?!” she demands, an edge of panic to her voice.

“Ignore him,” Arya says. She rolls her eyes. “He’s only joking. Aemon, I came to see if you wanted to go train with me. I’m eager to see what progress you’ve made without me. But if you can’t do your work…” she sighs sadly.

Aemon wriggles in Gendry’s grasps until he’s able to squirm out and land on his feet. He hurries back to his seat, his eyes earnest. For a moment, Jon thinks he’s given in— he’s _stunned_ — but he ignores the torn parchment entirely and reaches for the first practice page he completed. He twists and shoves it out towards Arya imploringly.

Arya takes it. She looks at it. “Very nice.”

He grabs both halves of the torn parchment next and passes that to her, too. He gives her a second to look at it, and then he says. “It’s the same, _Awa_. I already done it.”

“No,” Arya refutes. She holds the completed parchment and uncompleted parchment side-by-side. “There are different numbers.”

“It’s _the same_!” Aemon says, frustrated. He flops forward and slams his head into the table again. “ _Boring_!”

“They’re both counting. Is that what you mean?”

Aemon nods.

“It’s for more practice. If you know how to do it, then just do it and stop arguing,” Arya orders. “I want to go shoot with you, but I’ll just go ask Temmo if he wants to come instead. He and Lyaella can play together, and you can just stay here and—” Aemon stands on his chair and reaches out, snatching both halves of the parchment from Arya. “— that’s what I thought.”

Jon can only shake his head when Aemon finishes both halves in about half a minute.

“All that whining and arguing, and you’re already done,” Jon tsks. “You should’ve just done it.”

Aemon shrugs. He hops off his chair and hurries around the table, wedging his body in the small space between Jon and Dany’s chairs. He leans his head against Jon’s arm and looks pleading between Dany and Jon.

“Daddy, Mamma, can I _please_ , _please,_ PLEASE go train?” he begs. He rises onto his toes and puckers his lips, waiting for both of them to lean their faces down where he can reach them. He’s ridiculously sweet as he presses soft kisses to both their faces. “ _Please_ …”

Dany melts. It’s no surprise. Jon can’t say anything: he’s the same way.

“All right,” she agrees, and Aemon throws his arms around her, elated. She looks up at Arya and Gendry. “Meet us at the Dragonpit when you’re done?”

Arya nods. She reaches out and smacks Jon’s arm gently. “Come with us.”

“I already promised Lyaella I’d take her flying after this,” Jon says. “She’s been dying to ride Moonbloom all day, and we don’t let her without one of us in the sky, too.”

“I’ll go with her,” Dany offers at once. Jon looks down at her. She’s still hugging their son; she presses a soft kiss to his forehead and brushes her fingers lovingly through his dark hair. Aemon looks so content that Jon doubts he’s really going to go with Arya and Gendry.

“Storm’ll be devastated,” Jon says. It’s true. He told him yesterday he’d have time to take to the skies today. He doesn’t like to let him down.

“I’m sure Aemon would _love_ to ride Storm with you after you get done training with Arya.”

“YES!” Aemon cries. “And then I ride _Fost_!”

“No,” Jon and Dany chorus. He knows he has to be six for that. They tell him daily.

“Awww…” Aemon sighs. He frowns up at them. “That’s _actally_ not fair.”

Dany taps his nose. “Yes, it actually is.”

Aemon huffs once, but he’s soon over it. Jon holds his hand as they walk back to Rhaella’s Fortress to get his bow, and Aemon doesn’t let go until they make it to the archery targets. He looks up at Jon, his eyes twinkling.

“Watch, Daddy! Watch!” he says, pride evident in his tone. Jon sits atop the half-wall with Gendry and watches on with a smile as Aemon eagerly lets an arrow fly towards the farthest target. It pierces just off from the middle with a swift and satisfying _twack!_ , and Aemon spins around to look expectantly at Jon. Jon nods at him, his smile still wide and proud.

“Great job, Aemon,” he praises, and Aemon beams.

He’s unstoppable after that. Arya fetches arrow after arrow, and Aemon shoots at every target, managing to hit near the center on each and even the center itself on two of them. While his bow was made special for him— an ingenious design created to lessen the strength needed to send arrows great distances— his persistence is a large contributing factor to his success. If his arm gets sore from string slap, he doesn’t show it. Arya gives him a few minor corrections, but he takes to them so well that she steps back and joins Jon and Gendry on the wall, electing to simply watch for a time.

“He’s great,” she says, pride evident in her tone. “He’s been practicing often, I can tell.”

“Nearly every day,” Jon affirms. “He loves it. You should’ve seen him and Quentyn’s son— they would’ve slept here at the targets if we let them. That’s all they did the entire visit.”

Arya smiles at that. The three of them turn their focus back to Aemon, and for a while, no one says much. Aemon looks back every shot to see if they’re still watching, his eyes searching Jon’s face in particular. Jon feels a rush of pride every time he gets to smile at Aemon or offer him praises; his approval is clearly what Aemon is seeking, and Jon is glad to be able to give it to him. Glad to be a father that encourages and supports— glad to be a father in general. It’s the best thing he’s ever been, and the most important. Nothing in the world makes him feel as proud of himself as that.

“He’s adorable,” Arya says. There’s a short pause. “I think I’ll have one of my own.”

Jon looks at Arya in surprise. He smiles and looks between Arya and Gendry; they’re both fighting back smiles of their own. “Yeah?”

“Yes. Cheekiness and naughtiness and all,” Arya affirms.

“You do have a way with the cheekiness and naughtiness,” Jon laughs. “Aemon listens to you better than almost anyone.”

Arya nods proudly. “That’s true, isn’t it? I’m great with him.”

“You are. And with Lyaella,” Jon agrees. He senses this isn’t the right topic to tease her about. He’s being completely genuine. “You’ve always been.”

Baby Rickon loved her fiercely, and she him. Jon wonders if she’s thinking of him now, too.

“That’s a good thing, then,” Arya finally says, her voice quieter than it was a moment prior. “Because I am.”

It takes Jon a moment. “You are…?”

“Having one. I am having one.”

Jon stares at her for a beat, and then his eyes drop to her belly, but of course it looks no different. He stares at the flat expanse for a moment anyway, his brain turning, trying to make sense of this. His little sister— having a _baby_ …

“Now _that’s_ a smile,” Arya says, laughing. Jon hadn’t even realized he was again, but as soon as she says it, he feels the pull at his cheeks. “You’re happy for me, I take it.”

“Yes. For both of you,” Jon says. He smiles at Gendry, and he beams back. Jon understands the joy and excitement in his eyes well. He’s felt it twice now, soon to be thrice. _Already thrice, really,_ Jon thinks.

Arya turns and tucks herself against his chest, and he’s quick to hug her tight. He smooths her dark hair and thinks about how lucky the world is to soon have another piece of Arya in it. How lucky their family is. It’s growing even more, and nothing brings Jon more joy than that.

“You’re sure you want to go to Essos with us?” Jon checks. He pulls back from their hug and looks down at her. “You don’t have to—”

“I’m very sure. I wouldn’t miss Aemon meeting Daario for the world. That child can see through anything and take a grown man down with three words and a look; I can’t wait to see what he thinks of him.”

Jon snorts. He hasn’t given much thought to what Aemon will think of Daario, largely because _he_ doesn’t give much thought to Daario. While Aemon might like how straight-forward Daario is, Aemon doesn’t always take kindly to strangers acting overly-familiar with Dany (or Lyaella). Jon hasn’t yet decided if that’s due to possessiveness or wariness. Perhaps both.

Something heavy drops into Jon’s lap, and he looks down to see Aemon piling his bow and quiver there. Jon reaches out and sets a hand atop both so they won’t slip from his lap.

“You’re done?” he asks his son.

“I guess,” Aemon says. “‘Cause you aren’t even watching.”

Jon shifts the bow and arrow off his lap and rests it carefully on the other side of him, and then he hoists his grumbling son up and flings him into the air a couple of times. Aemon’s giggling as he cradles him to his chest afterwards.

“Dramatic. That’s what you are,” Jon teases him. He leans in and kisses Aemon’s nose. Aemon hugs him around his neck. “I was watching,” Jon promises him. “I’m proud of you, Aemon.”

“I been practicing,” Aemon says earnestly.

“I know you have. I can tell,” Jon praises. He smiles as Aemon kisses his beard. “Are you ready to go see Mother and Sister?”

Aemon’s arms tighten around Jon’s neck with excitement. “Yes, yes, yes, yes! And _Fost!”_

“Yes, and Frostfire,” Jon agrees.

They part ways with Arya and Gendry and begin the walk to the Dragonpit. Jon is in no hurry; he shifts Aemon so he’s carrying him on his back, and as they walk, they talk about anything and everything. Jon loves talking to his son: he says such unexpected and blunt things that it often takes Jon off guard. Sometimes, it helps him see a problem in a different way. Other times, it makes him laugh harder than he ever has.

They chatter on about problems facing the kingdom; Aemon loves to give input. He’s as endearingly focused on that as he is archery. He tells Jon he thinks he and Dany are making the right choice not to use their funds for the deaf programs for extra soldiers.

“That’s because you’re the best king, Daddy,” his son tells him. He says it truly and easily. It’s clear that, to him, that’s an indisputable fact.

“You think so?”

“Yes. You’re good, Daddy.”

“I’m glad you think that. What kind of king would you want to be? A good one, too?”

Aemon thinks about that for far longer than Jon anticipated— so long he stops expecting a response. As they approach the Dragonpit, Aemon finally answers.

“When I’m king, I’m going to be brave.”

Jon was expecting _good_ , or _strong_ , or perhaps even _bossy_. _Brave_ touches something in him, some current of emotion that narrows his throat and encourages him to hug his little son close to his heart.

“You already are,” he admits.

He has no doubts in his mind that Aemon will be a brave king should Lyaella one day choose to rule with him. He sees that trait in his son as easily as he sees _loving._

“What else will you be? Honorable?”

“Yes, like you,” Aemon nods. “Everybody gets oranges on their name day! Maybe…ten hundred!”

“That’s extremely generous of you. What else?”

“Good little boys get to ride their _dagons_ when they are _tree_.”

Jon musses Aemon’s hair at that and rolls his eyes affectionately. “I should’ve seen that one coming. You’re never going to give this argument up, are you?”

“No. I want to ride _Fost_.”

“One day you will,” Jon promises. “What else will you do if you’re king?”

“Hmm…I’ll give everybody new bathtubs.”

Jon laughs out-loud. He can’t help it. “ _Bathtubs_?”

“So they can have baths and not smell like that.”

“…Right. Perhaps you could word your reasoning in a kinder way when you announce that particular gift.”

“You know what else, Daddy?”

“What?”

“I’m gonna take care of the queen all the time.”

Jon smiles. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

He looks up at Jon, his expression as serious as his little features can appear. “’Cause I love my Aella, Daddy.”

Jon’s heart softens. He leans down and kisses Aemon’s forehead.

“I know you do. I love her, too. And I love Mother, and I love you.”

Bravery is needed for love that strong. Luckily, they’re all well-stocked.

The sunlight dims suddenly, and he and Aemon look up at the sky as Drogon and Moonbloom glide through the air above them. Jon and Aemon wear a matching smile.

“Let’s go join them,” Jon says. He’s suddenly as eager to fly atop his dragon as his son is. There’s nothing in the world quite like it. “Let’s go fly.”

Aemon squirms out of Jon’s arms and races towards the entrance to the Dragonpit. “ _FOST_! _FOST! COME FLY, FOST!_ ”

“I meant you and I on Storm and you know it—!” Jon’s nearly knocked over by a strong, unexpected gust of air as Frostfire swoops down overhead and slams into the ground only a few steps from Jon. His landing is so forceful that chunks of earth fly up from the ground, and Jon has to stop for a moment and rub vigorously at his burning eyes as dirt flies up into them. He looks up with his eyes still streaming to see Aemon scaling Frostfire’s extended wing— “AEMON TARGARYEN, YOU BETTER _NOT_ — AEMON!”

He watches in furious disbelief as Aemon hugs his arms around one of Frostfire’s spikes and tells him to fly in Valyrian. Frostfire doesn’t hesitate a moment. He kicks off and shoots into the air so quickly that Aemon nearly loses his grip. Jon’s heart stops in his chest as Aemon struggles to tighten his hold on the spike with his little arms, his legs too small to even hope to mount the dragon properly.

“Storm!” Jon calls urgently. “STORM!”

He sees a blue-violet flash as Moonbloom bursts through the clouds, and he quickly yells up towards Lyaella.

“GET AEMON!”

Which…was a mistake, as he soon realizes. Aemon’s shrieks of joyful laughter can be heard all the way on the ground as Lyaella and Moonbloom begin chasing after him. It’s not only a game to him— it sounds to be the most entertaining game in the known world.

Finally, Storm comes bounding out of the Dragonpit, a hunk of meat still in his mouth. Jon points up at Frostfire, and Storm drops the hunk of meat to the ground and furiously breathes smoke through his nostrils. He rushes over, knocks his wing against the back of Jon’s knees, and then swoops his head beneath him and catches him on his neck. Jon’s head is still spinning as he straddles Storm and grasps tight, but Storm doesn’t need his direction. He follows after Moonbloom, who’s following after Frostfire, and soon, Silverstar has joined their cause. Aemon’s second great escape finally comes to an end as Drogon appears ahead of them, approaching head-on, a spine-tingling shriek filling the air.

Frostfire usually tries to defy Drogon’s orders, but at that terrifying sound, he immediately dives towards the ground, evading Drogon. Jon looks across the sky and meets Dany’s eyes; she’s looking at him incredulously. Jon tries to find her mind so he can explain to her what happened, but she must be too far away. He settles for shaking his head in exasperation to hopefully show her he did _not_ sanction this.

The three of them dive down and land around Frostfire. Aemon must’ve slid all the way down Frostfire’s back and down his tail during Frostfire’s descent; he’s hugging the very end of his tail with both arms.

“ _Aemon_!” Dany yells. She slides smoothly off Drogon and lands on her feet. At nearly the same moment, Aemon’s tired arms give out, and he goes plummeting to the dirt beneath them. Jon, Lyaella, and Dany rush over to him, but when they reach him, he’s already sitting up.

His eyes are bright, and his hair is sticking up in every direction. His cheeks are flushed from the wind. It takes Jon a moment to realize he has tears in his eyes, and when he does, he reaches out for his son at once, his heart breaking.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Dany demands. “Aemon, you _can’t_ —”

“Wow! _Wow! WOW!_ Mamma, I gotta fly again!” Aemon cries. He goes to scramble back up Frostfire’s tail, but both Jon and Dany reach out and grab him before he can. He squirms in their grasps. “Mamma! Daddy! _PLEASE, I want to!”_

“No, Aemon. You nearly fell off!” Jon reminds him. He holds firm to his son’s arm. “You disobeyed me—”

“Nooo! You sayed ‘let’s go fly’!” Aemon argues, his eyes wide with exaggerated innocence. He points at Frostfire. “I flied.”

“You knew what I meant, son. You and I, and you and I and Mamma, have talked about this daily for nearly a year now! Do not pretend to be stupid, Aemon. You do us all a disservice.”

“I’m _not!_ I didn’t! I won’t fall off!! _Please, Daddy!_ I’m gonna ride _Fost_!” He tries to scramble up Frostfire again, and when they hold him back, he begins to howl.

“If you try to get back on that dragon before we say you can, you won’t be going to Essos!” Dany snaps. Aemon looks up at her at that, his tantrum stopping mid-howl. Dany kneels down so she’s eye-to-eye with him. “You and I will stay here, and Daddy and Lyaella will go to Essos without us!”

Lyaella’s face falls, and Aemon’s eyes swell with horror.

“ _No!_ ” Lyaella begs.

“No! No! Nooo! Please, Mamma! No, I’m sorry! I— I’m— _very very very sorry!”_ Aemon exclaims. He throws his arms around his mother’s neck and nestles over her heart, his hand petting sweetly at her hair as he hugs her. Dany hugs him back, but the firm set of her lips tells Jon she’s not happy with their son right now. That’s obvious in her threat: it’s the harshest punishment they could enact. They’ve never raised a hand to their children, but even if they were willing, Aemon likely wouldn’t blink an eye. This, though, has petrified him. He’s gushing with apologies, and when Dany pulls him back by his shoulders and looks seriously at his face, he quiets and listens, tears glistening pitifully on his cheeks. Jon can’t help but feel bad for their naughty son; he has an urge to swoop in and save him, but he refrains from it.

“You are _too little_ to ride Frostfire by yourself! Is that clear?”

Aemon nods quickly. A few more tears roll down his face, and his lips tremble, but he doesn’t sob. Dany reaches out to hug him again, but then she pauses. She inhales sharply, and Jon soon sees what she’s looking at. Small circles of blood are blooming on the fabric of Aemon’s clothes at various places on his body. Dany gently pulls his tunic up to look at a spot on his belly, and Jon kneels beside her; it’s clear to them after only a second that the wounds are from Frostfire’s scales and spikes. They tore at Aemon’s clothes and skin as he slid down him. Dany’s voice sounds pained. “Oh, Aemon…look what’s happened—”

“It’s okay,” Aemon dismisses quickly. “Don’t hurt. I’m brave.”

Jon and Dany share a frown. Lyaella shuffles forward to look, too. She holds her injured hand out and begins pulling at her bandage.

“I can give him my bandage, Mamma—”

“No, Ly, you need to leave that on,” Dany says quickly. She reaches up and stills Lyaella’s hand. “Thank you, though. We’re going to take him to Aethel and have her clean these up.”

Jon expects Aemon to begin howling again at that— he despises Aethel’s wound cleanser— but he doesn’t. He holds Jon and Dany’s hands as they walk to Aethel’s house and doesn’t say anything. He clearly a bit angry with them. Jon takes Lyaella’s un-injured hand with his other and walks with her, too. He ignores Aemon’s prickly silence and smiles down at Lyaella. Her silver braids are tangled and frizzed from the wind, and she looks entirely exhausted, but she’s also never looked happier.

“Did you have fun?” he asks.

She looks up at him. She’s glowing so brightly it brings a lump to Jon’s throat. It’s a luminance that’s always there, but it’s never more brilliant than it is after she’s flown. He loves when his children are happy.

“We went over the water! It looked like a million diamonds, Daddy,” she says. She laughs suddenly. “Moonbloom went low so the water brushed her tummy!”

Jon hugs her to his side and smiles. “She likes the water, doesn’t she? She loved the snow.”

“So much,” Lyaella enthuses. The dragons had followed them to Winterfell for Arya’s wedding, and Moonbloom had spent the majority of it either napping in a pile of snow or rolling around in it with Frostfire. Silverstar found the climate incredibly offensive and stuck with Drogon, nesting on an expanse of thawed land. Storm bounced between both groups, playing at times in the snow with Moonbloom and Frostfire or warming himself with Silverstar and Drogon. After a spell, the Northerners warmed to the dragons’ presence and began laughing at their antics and choosing their favorites. Not at all to Jon’s surprise, Moonbloom was the crowd-pleaser. Friendly and even-tempered, she’d let anyone come up to her and stroke her scales— as long as Lyaella was nearby. The Northerners likened Lyaella to Lyanna and Moonbloom to Lyanna’s horses quickly enough, and when Lyaella showed off her love and skill with actual horses, well, that only made them like her more. She had the North in the palm of her hand in two days’ time.

When they arrive at Aethel’s, Dany explains what happened to Grey Worm while Jon holds Aemon in his lap so Aethel can cleanse his wounds without him bolting. The first time he fell and skinned his knee—over a year ago now— they had to chase him around Rhaella’s Fortress for ten minutes before they caught him. How he could move that quickly on his chubby, wobbly toddler legs, Jon never determined. Aemon has a habit of surprising them. Davos often says one can never truly be sure what he’ll do next, and Jon’s found that to be true. His daughter is as steady, soft, and brilliant as the moon; Aemon is a red comet.

“There,” Aethel says firmly. She sets the glass dropper back into the vial of wound cleanser. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Aemon glowers spectacularly and continues blowing on one of his scrapes. He has the air of a cross, wounded dragon licking his wounds.

“Little princes who hate being tended to should probably stop doing reckless things,” Aethel sings.

“I’m not reck-less! I have a lot of reck!”

“It’s okay, A,” Lyaella soothes. She snuggles to his side and lifts his hand, blowing gently on a wound at the heel of his hand. “It’ll feel better soon! Then do you want to go play come-into-my-castle?”

Aemon perks up. “Okay! But we need more peoples to play that.”

“Avaline and Nettie and Dorian can come play, and maybe Nona and Serell.” She looks up at Jon and Dany. “Can they?”

“Sure,” Jon allows, and Dany nods.

For as much as Aemon insisted his wounds were ‘stinging very, very bad!’, he forgets about them entirely now. He stops blowing on his wounds and reaches out to take Lyaella’s hand.

“And let’s play monsters and maidens!”

“Yes!” Lyaella says. She gasps suddenly. Jon and Dany look questioningly at her. It was less a gasp of excitement and more of an alarmed gasp. She leans her head in towards Aemon’s and whispers in their strange version of Valyrian. Jon catches a few words— _hidden, forgot, sweet—_ though he’s not sure what the context is. He looks at Dany— sometimes she can understand more than he can because there’s a bit of Dothraki thrown in the mix— but she looks similarly curious.

“Uh-oh,” Aemon whispers. He sits back and makes a face. Lyaella’s expression is nearly identical. “Oops.”

“What?” Jon asks warily. “What’s _oops_?”

“What have you two done?” Dany demands.

Lyaella bites her lip. Aemon slaps his forehead in exasperation.

“We just— we forgotted, Mamma,” Aemon says.

“…Forgot _what_?” Dany and Jon chorus.

“We played hide-the-treasure days ago….” Lyaella starts.

“And we had the _bestest teasure_ —”

“Blood oranges and figs in a big bowl of sweet cream—”

“And we hided it sneaky!”

Jon is beginning to understand.

“You forgot to go get it once you finished playing, didn’t you?” Dany asks, deadpanned.

Lyaella and Aemon bob their heads in unison.

Dany sighs. “Where did you hide it? I’m sure a handmaiden already found it.”

Lyaella shakes her head slowly. “No…I don’t think so, Mamma.”

“Why…”

She bites her lip again and looks up at the sky, avoiding Dany’s eyes. “We hid it under the wiggly floorboard in Tyrion’s bedchambers. The one under his bed.”

Jon has to turn his face and press his knuckles to his mouth to keep from laughing.

“ _Oh_ ,” Dany says. Jon feels her glance. “Jon, I suppose that’s the ‘awful stench’ that Tyrion keeps reporting. He was blaming it on the pipes.”

“We’re sorry, Mother,” Lyaella says, her head hung low.

Aemon doesn’t look sorry at all. He’s laughing to himself now. Jon would get onto him about it…except he’s only _just_ managing to keep from laughing himself, so best not to say anything right now.

“Well,” Dany says. She stands up. “Let’s go clean it up, then.”

“ _Ewwww! No!”_ Aemon protests at once. “Gross, Mamma! No! Ick!”

“Yes, Aemon. You two left it there, now you’re going to go clean it up. We’ll get some cleaning supplies from Ezhi.”

“I can’t _clean_ — I’m just a baby, Mamma!” Aemon cries. He holds up his hands. “Look at my little hands…they are too small for scrubbing!”

“Too small for— Jon, do you hear this? Our son, who _insists daily_ that he’s ‘sort of a man now’ and can ride his dragon all by himself is suddenly ‘just a baby’.”

“That’s very convenient, Aemon,” Jon says. His lips are twitching terribly, and his laughter is bubbling up his throat.

“He could get his wounds dirty, Mamma,” Lyaella says gravely.

“Don’t you help him!” Dany scolds, but it’s playful. Lyaella giggles.

Aemon shrugs. “I can _hep_ when I’m six.”

Dany throws her head back. “Oh, R’hllor, save me…” but she’s visibly fighting back laughter, too.

In the end, both children _do_ clean up the spoiled food mess, though Aemon coughs and gags dramatically the entire time, and Jon’s fairly certain he’s only going along with it because Lyaella is.

“I hope when Rhae finally comes that she’s a bit less mischievous,” Jon teases. He sweeps his children into his arms as he says it, though, and hugs them. “You two are enough work on your own.”

He’s not expecting them to begin roaring with laughter at that comment.

“What?” he asks. He can’t help but laugh along with them. “What’s so funny?”

“Rhae is the _most_ mischievous, Daddy,” Lyaella explains. Aemon’s chortles grow louder.

“You’re kidding. That’s a very funny joke.” They’re still laughing. He looks at Dany. “They _are_ joking, aren't they?”

Dany’s smiling. “No, I don’t believe that they are.”

“We’re not, Daddy,” Lyaella assures him, still giggling.

Daenerys walks over and loops her arms around his waist. She hugs him and leans into him; he can feel the curve of her growing smile against his chest.

“I bet you wish you were still enjoying peace and quiet at the Wall,” she murmurs.

Jon wraps his arms around her. He knows she’s teasing, but he can’t. Not about that.

“Not even a little bit,” he says, his tone fierce and ardent. He kisses the crown of her head. “Not at all.”

Dany looks up at him. He takes her face in his hands and studies her eyes; they’re soft and happy. Full of love. She lifts up on her toes and presses her lips to his.

“Never,” he swears.


	9. Great Figure Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're all staying well! If you are social distancing, I hope this chapter brings you a bit of entertainment to fill the long hours at home! I'm sure there are a million typos here because I only proofread once this time...please grant me grace 💙

I.

Leaving King’s Landing is more difficult than Dany anticipated it’d be, but her children’s excitement helps to dampen her distress.

In the days leading up to their departure, while Dany and Jon spend their hours triple-checking everything and circumventing anxious thoughts, Lyaella occupies herself with tracing their voyage path in cheerful-colored paints on large maps, writing an itinerary of places they’ll pass through with brief facts about that location’s history, and calculating the approximate number of knots each ship in their royal fleet can travel under ideal circumstances. She carries her notebook around with her at all hours and shows anyone who shows even the slightest bit of interest her ‘studies’. Aemon asks Dany and Jon when it’s time to go to Essos at least three times each day, and he becomes obsessed with the task of packing. He packs a new bag each and every day so that, by the time their departure week finally arrives, his chambers are full of bags packed with random items. Forks, bars of hair soap, wood carving tools, an abacus, saddle leather, seeds, arrowheads…

Davos, amused by Aemon’s rich assortment of items, informs Aemon that their ships can carry anything they’d ever need, so there’s no need for him to pack up the odds and ends of their entire kingdom. He props Aemon on his hip and takes him on a tour of some of their largest ships, which sends Aemon into a stubborn fit of refusal as he decides it’s impossible for those ‘big, big’ boats to do anything but sink when set on the open water. He proclaims he will _not_ be getting on any ship, and neither will his mother, father, or sister. Davos and multiple maesters show Aemon diagrams and written explanations of buoyancy in an attempt to reassure him, but Aemon has little interest in the pages and ignores most everything everyone says. It isn’t until Lyaella builds a tiny model of a boat with him that he starts to change his attitude towards boats. When he sees that boat bobbing along the surface of their bathwater, he decides boats are, in fact, fun, and for the next three days leading up to the day they leave, he spends nearly every waking moment building his own armada of miniatures boats and experimenting with how many stones he can place in them before they sink to the bottom of the bath. By the time they actually get on board, he’s got three dozen tiny wooden boats wrapped up in his soft, grey blanket and cradled in his arms, and his violet eyes shimmer with excitement.

He and Lyaella are unconfined vessels of enthusiasm that first day at sea. Dany and Jon lounge on the top deck and watch as their children race from bow to stern, their voices carrying loudly in the sea-fresh breeze as they play. They play queen-and-king for a bit, then they play mother-and-father with their collection of stuffed toys, and then they play an ambitious game of rats and cats that leaves Lyaella, Jon, Dany, Davos, Arya, Gendry, Aethel, _and_ Grey Worm searching for Aemon for nearly an hour, only to find him wedged behind two massive bags of flour in a narrow galley cupboard. The children are restricted to the deck after that, but they while away the last of the daylight constructing an impressive fort with dozens of bedlinens and coverlets, and that’s where they take their evening meal and where they spend the rest of the day, giggling together and chattering on in their own version of Valyrian.

When the moon finally rises, Jon and Dany crawl into the fort to weasel their two children out and carry them to bed. But they’re surprised to find them already asleep. Their heads are resting against the opened pages of a massive book, and they’re snuggled up just as they always are each and every night. Aemon’s fingers are tangled sweetly in Lyaella’s curls, and her tiny palm is lying over his heart, her fingers curled as she sleeps. Dany shares a look with Jon in the soft, white light; his smile shows the same affection laden in Dany’s heart.

“I’ll get Aemon,” he offers quietly.

Dany scoops Lyaella up carefully, her only difficulty stemming from her crouched position beneath the overhead coverlets and linens. Jon hoists Aemon up in a way that makes it appear easy, but Dany knows it isn’t. Aemon may be younger than his sister, but his little frame is deceptive: he’s remarkably heavy for his size, particularly in sleep. Dany likens it to hoisting and carrying a boulder.

Of course, he’s much sweeter than a boulder. He hugs Jon around his neck and snuggles close to him soon after he’s lifted, and Dany sees him sigh happily as he pats Jon’s curls and realizes who’s carrying him. It soaks her heart through with tenderness. She kisses the top of her daughter’s head and follows Jon down to their quarters, their children continuing to snooze despite the unsteady climb down to the lower level.

Jon and Dany’s quarters look nearly identical to the quarters they’d made Lyaella in, the quarters she’d been born in, the quarters Dany died in. Beyond a few cosmetic differences, stepping into it feels like stepping into the past. Jon visibly recoiled the first time they entered it, and Dany felt the strangest rush of familiarity that left her feeling dazed. Because of that, they’d opted to spend their first day of sea on the deck, just as they’d done on their journey back to King’s Landing after Lyaella’s birth. Dany hopes, with time, they’ll become more comfortable below deck. But if the way her throat is narrowing now is any indiction, she’s not wholly optimistic.

As they settle their children into their bed, they share the same resigned thought: _we’ll have to sleep here tonight._ There’s no way around it. They can’t make their children sleep on the deck the entire trip, and they can’t leave their children down here alone. Aemon’s conniving naughtiness aside, they’d be frightened to wake up and find themselves so far from their parents. And what if they need them in the night?

She and Jon go back onto the deck to tell Arya and Gendry goodnight, and then they take turns readying for bed in their small washroom. Dany’s hair feels knotted and damp from the humid wind, but she’s far too tired to attempt to bathe; she brushes through the tangles somewhat aggressively as she waits at the foot of the bed for Jon, combing harder with each memory or thought that tries to creep up on her as if the pain at her scalp might chase it away. For the most part, it does. By the time Jon joins her on the bed, her head throbs, but her hair is smooth as silk.

They curl together on the left side of the bed, allowing their children the right side. Ordinarily, they sleep with their children between them, but tonight, they need each other. Dany burrows into Jon’s embrace and hides her face against his scarred chest, her chest wide and aching from the things lurking just at the edges of her thoughts— the things she refuses to let herself think about. They torment her all the same. The last time she went to sleep in these same waters, in nearly this same boat…

She curls her hands into fists. Her palms sting with the memory of six-year pain. Even now, the scar tissue is tender. Aethel says it probably always will be.

And she’s afraid to go to sleep.

It’s completely illogical, but she can’t do anything for it. She feels frightened and disappointed in herself for that fear. She thought she’d moved past this. But it only took one familiar setting to bring it all back to her. As she lay there listening to Jon’s heart, she finds herself taking stock of every throb of her pulse in her head, every slight twinge of pain, every possible budding headache. Waiting, searching, monitoring, fearing…

But it isn’t her who should fear her dreams anymore. It’s the little girl curled behind her, whose mind can torment her nearly as viciously as Bloodraven had once tormented Dany. Her daughter, whose existence now is solid proof that this isn’t the past at all. Dany turns over so she’s facing her children, and as Jon curls his body around hers, she feels some of the pressure inside her chest let up. She holds her tired eyes open and gazes at the moonlight glowing against Lyaella’s silver curls, at the sheen of Aemon’s dark hair, at the steady rise and fall of their little backs. They’re the holders of the future, and that’s where she longs to be.

“It’s where we _are_ ,” Jon murmurs. His hand slides down to her lower belly, and in the span of only a few seconds, they share in an indistinguishable, tangled burst of thoughts and feelings. Together, their memories paint a full picture: Jon remembers the sight of her hands sliced nearly in two and gushing blood, and Dany’s remembers the throbbing sting of the pain. Jon remembers the sight of her in her blood-soaked bed, and Dany remembers the feeling of that blood draining from her. In their clarity is brutal, shared pain, but there’s comfort, too. Together, they can remember everything about the night they made the girl lying beside them soaked in moonlight. Dany remembers the pleasure soaking her lower half with each thrust, and Jon remembers the soft heat of her, the way she gripped his body as no one had before. _I remember thinking I belonged there, in you,_ he shares with her now. She lives in that moment with him for a time. _I was right._

He was. And though recalling making love to him this way, with their memories intwined, is lovely, it’s nothing compared to _actually_ making love to him. She squirms closer to him and runs through a series of memories so erotic she feels half-crazed by the end, and then she feels no hesitation as they leave the bed and step in their tiny adjoining day cabin. They latch the door behind them and shed their clothes; they’re quiet as they kiss and touch, mindful of their sleeping children, suddenly indifferent to the painfully-familiar sounds and motions of the sea. When Jon finally sinks into her on the small, stiff sofa underneath one of the circular windows, she turns her pleasure inward, and she and Jon muffle moans and gasps into each other’s skin as they share in each other’s physical sensations as well as their own. Everything is perfect— because everything is understood. What her body needs, his needs. What his body needs, hers craves. If they were well-fitted before, it’s nothing to how they are now.

He brings her to the brink with delicious intensity every time, and like the times before it, she tumbles over the edge trembling with pleasure, a cry dying at the back of her throat. His pleasure doubles hers, and afterwards, she feels trembly and overcome; she rests her cheek against his chest and kisses his scar, her pulse bolting through her veins. His hand quivers lightly as he strokes her hair.

They’ve shared so many memories on boats, the majority of them life-changing. As they lie together in the aftermath, struggling against a wave of peace that threatens to lull them to sleep right there, all their previous fear and trauma forgotten even if only for that moment, she can’t help but think _the good won._

Later, as she and Jon wash up, he combs so gently and carefully through the damp knots of her tangled hair that she hardly feels the pull of the brush. She drifts to sleep with her hair smooth as silk and her husband’s hand over her heart.

II.

She wakes fully intact after a night of nondescript dreams, roused by the lively sound of Lyaella and Aemon playing.

It’s clear they’ve been awake for a while by the clarity of their tones. There’s not a slur of sleepiness to be found. Dany lifts her heavy eyelids and finds them sprawled on the carpet in front of the fire with what looks like every toy they packed in their trunks spread around them. She can feel the steady rise and fall of Jon’s chest beneath her head, and when she turns her face to look up at him, he’s no closer to waking than Lyaella and Aemon are to going back to sleep. Dany’s honestly surprised their children elected to play semi-quietly rather than wake them.

“Then you come to the audience chamber with me!” Lyaella says excitedly.

“Okay! ‘Hello, my queen, what’s wrong?’” Aemon asks, his voice drenched in genuine-sounding concern.

“‘The Septon says we’re a nomination— an _abombinanation,’”_ she answers. “‘And when I tried to go to the springs, he tried to kill me with poisons in the water!”

There’s the sound of rustling as Aemon leaps to his feet. “‘You don’t touch her! Your gods are stupid and not-real! ‘Cept the _Stanger_ who is lying and lying and tricking! He is the _Gate Uhver!_ I told you _forty-hunded_ times! Now we’re going to the _dagon_ pit!’ Aella, the _firepace_ is the _dagon_ pit, okay?” 

“Okay! The Septon cries and cries because he’s so scared, and then Moonbloom and Frostfire come, and he cries even harder—”

“— Then _Fost_ burns him up!”

“— No, he says he’s really sorry, and he promises to never, ever do it again and to move far away and never, ever come back.”

Aemon doesn’t seem sold on that particular detail. Dany almost laughs thinking about the distasteful look that’s surely gracing his adorable little face. And though she knows they’re just playing, Aemon’s comment about the Stranger in their imaginative game pulls at her mind. She nearly sits up and interrupts to ask him why he said that— why he said the Stranger is really the Great Other— but she doesn’t often get to listen to them playing so candidly. If she’s not otherwise distracted with kingdom duties, they’re usually playing in their pretend language.

“But maybe he’s lying,” Aemon points out, his tone deeply suspicious.

“‘If you’re lying, Septon, we’ll burn you up if we ever see you again!’” Lyaella says firmly. “‘Go away _forever_!’ And then he runs off and leaves King’s Landing and goes to Old Ghis.”

“‘Are you okay, my love?’” Aemon questions.

“‘Yes, I’m not scared of the Septon,’” Lyaella replies.

There’s a pause.

“’Cause the poisons,” Aemon clarifies, his voice lowered to a whisper as if they’re performing on stage and she’s just forgotten her role.

“Oh! ‘Yes, I’m okay, I didn’t sit in them at all, I just put my toe in there a tiny, little bit, then I knew. I’m okay. And our baby is okay, too!’”

“‘Good!’”

“‘It’s our sixth baby,’” Lyaella continues happily. When Dany peeks at them from beneath her eyelashes, she sees Lyaella’s balled up both their blankets— her ivory one, Aemon’s gray one— and has them shoved beneath her dress to resemble a pregnant belly (albeit a lumpy one). 

“‘I knowed that. I maked them. ‘Cause I’m the daddy.’”

“‘Right,’’” Lyaella agrees. “‘Do you want us to have a little baby boy or a little baby girl?’”

“‘Hmmm…. _prolly_ …a little baby girl. ‘Cause we got lots of boy babies.’”

“‘Okay, it’s a girl!’ And we’re really happy it’s a girl, A, ‘cause that’s what we really wanted.”

“Yeah!” Aemon agrees. Dany hears the sound of Aemon shuffling across the carpet, and she opens her eyes again in time to see him lean in and kiss Lyaella’s cheek. “‘I love you, my honey!’”

“‘I love you, too, my best beloved. Now let’s read our babies a story ‘cause it’s napping time.’ Pretend they’ve been riding their dragons all day and they’re very, very tired.”

“You can. I can’t read so I’m going to go on _Fost_. _Fost_ and I go to the Smoking Sea to look for the horn, okay?”

Dany can hear Lyaella’s soft frown. “You have to know how to read because you’re the king. It’s a good example.”

“No, reading is boring,” Aemon persists.

“I can teach you how, it’s fun, A! When you know how to read, you can know everything in the world, and that makes you very, very powerful and strong.”

“I’m already that,” Aemon dismisses.

Dany nearly interrupts to tell Lyaella _good luck. None of us have been able to convince him that he should learn to read, and I can’t count the number of people who have tried._ But she should’ve known Lyaella would find a way to get through to him.

“ _Please_ , A? I want to be able to write to you if we’re ever apart…if you can’t read, we can’t send each other ravens. Please?”

Aemon folds at once. There’s not even a second of hesitation.

“Okay. You can teach me, Aella.”

Lyaella perks up. “Really?! Now?!”

“Yes, but I don’t want Dothraki books.”

“Okay, we can read about Baelon the Brave! Come on, A, let’s get our books! Let’s go!!”

Lyaella’s full of such genuine joy that Dany’s certain Aemon’s beginning to feel a bit excited, too. The two chatter on as they dig through Lyaella’s chest of books, choosing title after title to appease Aemon’s pickiness— he says he will only read about _dagons_ , _bows,_ boats, wolves, swords, and their family— and then they curl together on the carpet and get to work. There’s no whining from Aemon, no complaints, no squirming or bouncing about the room. Dany can’t keep herself from nudging Jon awake. She searches out the soft layers of his sleepy mind.

_Look at this_ , she thinks, darting her eyes in their children’s direction.

Jon lifts his head slightly and blinks blearily at Aemon and Lyaella. There’s a long pause, and then he lowers his head back down onto the pillow and closes his eyes with a yawn.

_I’m dreaming. Aemon— willingly touching a book?_

_Not dreaming,_ Daenerys affirms. _Lyaella’s working her magic._

_Good for her,_ Jon thinks fondly. He tugs Dany back into the circle of his arms. _Let’s sleep more._

_I’m busy listening to Aemon and Lyaella discuss their_ six _children and their kingdom._

Jon fights back a laugh. _Six? Are they trying to outdo us?_

_Might be. They certainly have a detailed world built up. I’m not sure what’s innocent make-believe and what’s information gleaned from R’hllor._

_We could ask. But we’ll only hear what we always do—_

_‘Don’t worry about Lyaella’,_ Dany and Jon think. Dany sighs. _As if we could stop ourselves._

_I suppose he’s right that we don’t have to worry about_ this _,_ Jon thinks. He lifts his head up and looks again in their son and daughter’s direction. Aemon’s watching Lyaella as she sounds out a word for him, his expression completely drenched in admiration and love. _No matter what the future might hold for them, we know they’d never mistreat or hurt each other. We can’t say the same for other people out there._

Dany doesn’t doubt it for a second. And it’s strange that she doesn’t. Targaryen men being assets rather than hindrances for Targaryen women isn’t always the norm, but she thinks Aemon could help make it so— just as his father is.

_When do you think we’ll know for certain what the future will hold for them? When do you think they’ll start to see each other that way— if they do grow to see each other that way?_ Dany wonders.

_I don’t know. But I’m certain Aemon will make it well-known eventually. He’s not one to be quiet about what he wants._

Dany knows that to be true. And though they don’t have to worry about Lyaella’s safety or Aemon’s happiness in this possible scenario, there are plenty of other things to worry about.

_If it comes to pass, I fear what will happen with the Faith. With the people. They accept us, Jon, but_ this _…Aemon and Lyaella…I don’t know. You’re their father, and you love them no matter what, and even_ you _took three years to get to the point where part of you doesn’t recoil at the thought._

The idea has never been particularly upsetting to Dany, and the more time she’s had to think about it, the more accustomed she’s grown to it. In some ways, it’s ideal: they’ve no way to know if more dragons will follow theirs, but should more dragon eggs be hatched in the future, it would be best to have children who can still bond and claim those dragons. The children of two dragonriders have a much better chance of that. How well-suited they seem for one another only sweetens things.

_I don’t think I’m_ entirely _past that point yet,_ Jon admits. _It doesn’t matter, though: it’s not up to me, none of it. If they’re happy and cared for, who am I to complain? If my daughter is with someone she willingly chooses, someone she loves, someone who will protect her and love her forever, who am I to fight it? After seeing the way boys like Akko and Temmo and Rogier treat her, how could I possibly deprive her of someone who would treat her with the respect she deserves? And if my son is with someone who will make him happy and be true to him, someone who will love him with all their heart— selflessly, wholly— who am I to intervene? I’d be foolish to. I’d be selfish to. I’d be putting my own comfort over our children’s happiness._

To Dany, his words are unbearably sweet. It swells her heart and touches something within her; she leans over him and presses her lips to his in a soft kiss, her heart growing to the point it presses and crowds against her lungs, ’til it’s easier to kiss him than to breathe around it. Kissing lessens the pressure, at least.

It’s his selflessness that moves her, his willingness to put aside his own discomforts and his own reservations for the sake of their children. Even if what they’re speaking of is so far removed from the beliefs he’d been raised with that it’s taken three years for him to speak so openly and candidly about it without a dozen qualifiers tagged on ( _they probably won’t…._ or _they’re likely going to rule together with their own spouses…_ or _siblings don’t naturally feel that way for one another, so if we don’t push it, it likely won’t happen’.)_ There’s none of that now. There’s just the simple fact that if it happens, he’s going to let it. And Dany decided long ago that she will, too.

Jon continues, his mind a deeper red and a softer, smoother gray after her onslaught of kisses. It’s a testament to how focused Lyaella and Aemon are on their reading that they didn’t notice Dany’s affections.

_And if it’s not up to me, Dany, it’s_ really _not up to the Faith. They don’t have a say in our children’s lives at all._

The Faith doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean they won’t do everything their power to try to, anyway. Dany supposes her and Jon’s job will soon be to ensure their children retain as much agency as possible as they grow— not to enact more limitations on their free will or their hearts.

_As long as they’re safe_ , Dany vows. _As long as they’re good to each other, as long as they are gentle and kind and fair. As long as they treat each other the way they deserve to be treated. That’s all I ask. That’s all I can._

That’s all _anyone_ can.

As she and Jon gradually rise for the day and join their sweet children on the carpet, she thinks it likely won’t be too much to ask.

III.

It takes them five days to reach Tyrosh, and by that point, Dany, Arya, and Aemon are miserable.

Arya’s stomach has been plaguing her for quite some time, but Dany’s sickness sets in their second day at sea, and it seems to intensify each day. The motion below the main deck makes her deeply nauseated for most the day, and she spends quite a lot of her time sitting in the open air feeling minutes away from vomiting. She and Arya make a little ‘sick nest’ on the deck (as Gendry dubs it) with pillows and blankets and books, and they spent their time there talking, reading, and playing with Dany’s children. Or one of them, at least: an unexpected addition to their ‘sick nest’ is Aemon. By the third day at sea, he becomes whiny and withdrawn, a state that only grows in the days that follow. He trails after Dany, Jon, and Lyaella miserably, he hardly eats, and most worrying of all, he doesn’t get up to any mischievousness. Aethel checks over him often, but he has no fever and no other signs of illness; it’s decided, after gradually ruling out all other causes, that he’s likely suffering from seasickness.

“Or he’s having sympathy pains,” Jon murmurs, his hand stroking Aemon’s back. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

It wouldn’t. There have been many occasions where Aemon has insisted he’s sick, too, whenever Jon, Dany, or Lyaella are feeling under the weather. Yet Dany hopes that isn’t it. If it is, he’s going to have months of sickness ahead of him, as her sickness isn’t likely to abate anytime soon.

By the time they reach Tyrosh, their earlier ambitions of sailing straight on through to Volantis are forgotten. They anchor there and Dany and Jon meet with the Archon, a man of around fifty years of age who wears his beard and hair dyed a bright, obnoxious orange color. Dany is thankful for Aemon’s lingering nausea the first time they meet him; had he been feeling up to par, she’s certain the look of disgust on his little face at the sight of the Archon’s orange beard would’ve turned into a number of rude comments.

The Archon is wary but respectful. He opens the visitors’ quarters within the center of the eclectic city to them for as long as they need it, but he warns Dany that the Free Cities are ‘still free’ and intend to stay that way.

Exhausted from dealing with Aemon’s whininess and clinginess for five days straight, ill, and desperate for stable ground, Dany takes no issue with that. She has no intention of conquering Tyrosh in the immediate future, and she tells the Archon as much.

But that assessment soon changes.

She’s discussed the lingering presence of slavery within the Free Cities with Daario on a number of occasions, but either he had underrepresented the problem to her in writing, or he hadn’t been home in a long while. What Dany sees is not a ‘lingering presence’; it’s an _imposing_ presence. They’re everywhere: on the streets, peering out of windows, working on roofs, manning markets, minding children. Dany tries to count them as they venture into the city, but she soon loses count. They far outnumber the free Tyroshis— that much is obvious. And the sight of Daenerys Targaryen on their streets seems to draw most of them out of homes and buildings; their walkway in the street becomes so narrow with the ever growing crowds of slaves that Dany senses a number of their Guard becoming anxious.

Aemon watches and doesn’t say a word, but his jaw is set, and his dark brow remains furrowed over his eyes in a concerned expression the entire journey. Jon’s brow sits the same way on his face, though Dany reads anger lurking far below.

And her sweet Lyaella doesn’t understand. She looks at the slaves with her eyes wide and her gaze haunted, clearly horrified by what she’s seeing, and deeply unable to make sense of it. She’s clever— she knows what slavery is, and she knows despite the fragile eradication in Dragon’s Bay that it still exists in other places, but Dany knows she’s never really considered the depth of the horror of it until now. Until being faced with it.

She holds so tight to Dany’s hand that it makes Dany’s knuckles ache. Dany assumes she’s afraid of the strange people up until they pass by a butcher’s shop. And then she realizes Lyaella was holding so tight to keep herself from pulling away.

Of all things, it’s the sight of a slave mopping up animal blood from the stone floor of an open-air butcher shop that does her in. At first, she just turns and watches, her attention pulled to the scene so acutely that Dany is practically dragging her along by her hand. The slave notices her, too: she looks up and gazes at the Targaryens, and Dany finds herself slowing as she looks over there, too. The girl is young, and in her eyes burns a desperation so aching that Dany feels her throat narrow. Behind her, numerous body parts hang from butcher’s hooks: a sickly, brutal curtain.

The look in the girl’s eyes already has Lyaella beginning to pull away. So when the girl’s master storms in from the back— a huge, towering man draped in brightly-dyed fabrics and ornate jewelry— and smacks the back of the girl’s head hard enough to send her plummeting into the bloody water puddled at her feet, Lyaella yanks from Dany’s grasps.

She tries to bolt in the slave’s direction, but Grey Worm hoists her up before she can make it past the row of guards and soldiers flanking them on either side. She squirms and pushes against his arms, but he steels himself and refuses to let her so much as wriggle. He speaks calmly to her in Valyrian— his voice so low Dany can’t decipher what he’s saying— and after a minute or so, Lyaella relaxes in his arms. And that’s when the tears start. They don’t stop. She weeps into the crook of Grey Worm’s neck the entire walk, her tiny frame trembling in horror. By the time they make it to their temporary home for the night, she appears as sick as Aemon has been the past few days.

She cries and rages and paces. Her anguish distresses Aemon, and soon he’s crying, too. They all try to comfort her— her parents, her aunt and uncle, Davos, Aethel, Red Fly, Blue Rat— but the only one who manages to get through to her is Grey Worm.

“It’s not forever, and I would know,” he says in Valyrian. He walks in circles with her like he used to do when she was a little baby, his hand patting her back gently. “Your mother will fix it. Your mother will save them. Your mother always does. Shhh, little flower. It’s not forever…”

It soothes Lyaella immediately, but it makes Dany feel sick. Because she’s not sure how to fix it. She’s not sure her reign is in any position right now to be trying to conquer anything. Not when they’re still struggling every few years with a resurgence of slavery in Dragon’s Bay. If they can’t even eradicate it entirely there, how can she try to take on the Free Cities?

Her little daughter moves from Grey Worm’s arms to hers, and she hugs her tight around the neck and asks: “Are you, Mamma? Are you?”

For her, she’d do anything. Even something she has no idea how to do. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s done that for Lyaella.

“Yes. I will, Ly. _We_ will— Daddy and I. We’ll fix it.” She looks over at her husband. He’s frowning. “It might take some time, sweetling. These things do. But we’ll do it.”

“When?” Lyaella wants to know. She looks up at Dany. Her grey eyes churn with injustice. “Now?”

Dany kisses the top of her head. “We must have a plan first, and it must be a plan that won’t cause harm to our rule in Dragon’s Bay or our rule back home. We’ll need to discuss the matter with our council once we’re home.”

Lyaella shakes her head. “We don’t need to discuss it! They’re doing a bad thing, Mother—”

“Unfortunately, Ly, getting rid of slavery is very complicated. It takes more than just scolding them. Sometimes the hardest thing we can do is sit back and wait for the right moment, the right time, the right opportunity.”

Aemon tries to take Lyaella’s side. “We got our _dagons_ , Mamma!”

“Yes. We do. And they will be crucial when something is done. But something cannot be done right now.”

She looks over at Jon, Davos, Grey Worm, and Arya to gauge their opinion on the matter. None of them look bothered by what she’s said.

“We’ll make our time here worth it, though,” Jon promises Lyaella. He steps closer and reaches out to smooth her soft curls. “We’ll take note of their vulnerabilities, their weaknesses. We’ll consider this stop research.”

It was the perfect thing to say to their daughter. Dany looks at Jon as Lyaella lifts her head and wipes at her wet cheeks, her heart crowding her chest with affection.

“I can take notes, Father,” Lyaella says earnestly. “I’ll watch everything. I’m going to help…can I help?”

“We’d be lucky to have your help, Ly,” Jon smiles. He leans down and kisses the crown of her head. “Now, why don’t you and Aemon go play before supper?”

Dany sets Lyaella back down, and Aemon steps over and takes her hand. “Let’s _wach_ , Aella,” he says, pointing over at one of the windows overlooking the Fountain of the Drunken God. He passes Lyaella one of her journals; Dany’s not sure when he grabbed it from her chest, but it had to have been _before_ Jon suggested what he did. It would’ve had to have been when Lyaella was in the throes of her meltdown and they were otherwise distracted. Dany didn’t notice him unlatching the lock and lifting the heavy lid, nor did she notice him rummaging about inside for one of Lyaella’s many books. He grabbed the correct one, too: Lyaella takes notes in a journal whose cover is dyed a bright copper-orange, while her other journals are other hues (her dream journal is violet, her animal and plant journal is green, her ‘family’ journal is red…)

“Okay,” Lyaella says. She takes her journal from her brother and sniffs. Aemon wraps his arms around her and hugs her.

“I’ll help _,_ ” he promises his sister.

Everyone in the room knows how deeply he _despises_ writing— even so much as just writing _Aemon Targaryen_ — so the offer is deeply precious and kind. Lyaella doesn’t overlook it. She hugs him back, her first smile since they entered Tyrosh breaking through with the brilliance of a supermoon.

“Let’s count their soldiers first,” she decides. She takes her journal from her brother and weaves her fingers with his, walking with him over to the window. “We need to see how many there are and where they stay…oh, yes, we can see loads from right here! You have the _best_ ideas, Aemon.”

Aemon rocks happily on his feet, pleased by her approval. He joins her on the window sill, holds half her journal in his lap while the other half is in hers, and begins counting and tallying guards and soldiers without even a whisper of a complaint.

“If the scholarhouse maesters could see this…” Davos mutters, amused. “How many of them did he run off again?”

Dany feels a slight twinge of defensiveness. “He didn’t _run anybody off_ —”

“He’s cycled through at least a half-dozen, last I heard,” Arya answers. “All along, his ideal instructor was already beside him.”

“He works for the maesters sometimes,” Dany insists. He did that number practice with them, and he’s written his name a few times, and he at least pretends to read books.

But she can’t deny what they’re saying: he’s entirely more compliant and motivated now than he’s ever been in lessons with a scholar or maester. Dany can’t think of the last time someone got him to count without Aemon presenting a ten minute argument on why he shouldn’t have to first. She should’ve known. He’d fetch the moon from the sky for his ‘Aella’ if she asked it of him.

“He likely sees this activity as something ‘real’ and worthy of his time, too,” Jon points out. He’s right: Aemon never could see the point of lessons in the scholarhouse, but this has a very clear point and purpose to it. She’s glad to know he’s willingly to do ‘boring’ things if those ‘boring’ things are for some greater good.

Counting and writing don’t look ‘boring’ currently, though. He’s deeply focused and engaged in the task at hand. He only breaks from his counting long enough to shoot Lyaella looks so communicative that it makes Dany wonder if they’re speaking in their heads.

“Either way,” Davos says, his voice hushed. He’s got his eyes on them and he’s clearly noticed this rare moment of focus. “Let’s not disturb them.”

The open layout of the quarters allows them to step into another room without entirely leaving the previous one. They’re able to give the children space without leaving them without supervision. Not that they try to go anywhere: they sit on the window sill for two hours counting and talking, and Dany has to dig a can of fig and blood orange preserves from one of their trunks to convince the two of them to join them for supper. There, they sneak most their food to Ghost— he lays at their feet every meal, knowing Lyaella and Aemon will always feed him meat and other ‘undesirables’ off their plates— and only eat what Jon and Dany insist they _must_ to be able to get their slice of warm bread with a thick layer of preservers smeared on top. Lyaella gags at every attempt to eat her stewed eels no matter how many pleasant spices and spoonfuls of honey they add to it, her repulsion genuine, and Aemon pretends to retch at every minuscule bite of his mushrooms (his repulsion less genuine). Dany pretends not to notice when they switch items. Aemon eats Lyaella’s serving of the stewed eels happily— though Dany knows he’s not entirely fond of the dish himself; he sometimes takes pity on Lyaella’s peculiar food aversions and pretends to love things she hates in order to finish her meal for her—and Lyaella eats his bowl of mushrooms in a minute or two.

“Okay! Done! Now?! Now!?” Aemon begs. He sits on his knees and reaches eagerly across the table for his bread. Dany’s surprised he’s so desperate for it considering it’s all he’s eaten the past few days. With his seasickness, it was all he was able to keep down. He’s reaching for it now like it’s some delicacy he’s been deprived of for a decade.

“Yes,” Dany permits, and both Aemon and Lyaella take their hunks of bread off the plate Jon offers them, biting into the preserves with the same level of enthusiasm Ghost consumes a fresh carcass with.

They scamper off to ‘study’ after eating, though the multiple times Dany rises from the table to check in on them, she just sees them coloring and writing on parchment and bouncing about the room, all the books forgotten in the trunk. They don’t seem to be up to anything mischievous, though, so she lets herself relax at the table after a while and enjoy dessert with Jon, Arya, Gendry, Grey Worm, Aethel, and Davos. Whatever game Lyaella and Aemon are playing is so engaging they decline offers of honeyfingers or bowls of sweet cream, something that causes Jon to rise and check on them suspiciously. He shrugs as he returns and sinks back into his seat beside Dany’s.

“They’re just writing,” he tells her. He wraps his arm around her shoulders, and she leans into him. “Lyaella’s got Aemon writing in Valyrian.”

Dany laughs at that, bewildered. She twists and looks up at her husband.

“Valyrian? He can hardly write in the Common Tongue, why on earth are they writing in _Valyrian_?”

Jon lifts his shoulders. “I have no idea, but it’s keeping them occupied and out of trouble. That’s good enough for me.”

Dany assumes they’re playing king-and-queen and pretending to write ravens, likely to each other. Part of her is curious enough to want to rise and go in there to see what it is they’re managing to write, but considering Lyaella isn’t that great at writing in Valyrian herself, she imagines most of the meaning is likely imaginary. And anyway, she feels — and has always felt— that their little world together when they play is special and sacred to them. She doesn’t have a place in it, and that’s okay: she feels inordinately blessed that her children can have a childish world like that, an innocent, sheltered place to play and learn together. A place free from adults and real-life complications and complexities; a world where anything can happen. Her children sometimes ask her and Jon to play pretend with them, but though they try their absolute hardest to indulge and join in the game, none of it makes sense to them the way it does to Lyaella and Aemon. She just wants it to be like that for her children for as long as possible. So she doesn’t feel inclined to go in there and poke around to see what they’re writing or playing; it’s enough for her to know they’re safe and out of trouble.

The problem, as she later realizes, is that they _weren’t_ keeping out of trouble. 

They stop again in Lys, Aemon’s seasickness persistent once again despite all Aethel’s tinctures and therapies, and poor Arya vomiting so often Aethel insists she bring her bed onto the deck and sip on nutrient teas. Dany’s somewhere between Aemon and Arya in terms of her pitifulness; she feels sick on and off each day, but if she does vomit, it’s only ever once. Between the three of them, another unplanned stop is a necessary evil. Dany and Jon make sure they enter the city flanked on both sides by soldiers and guards so that Aemon and Lyaella might not get a glimpse of the multitude of pillow-houses scattered about, and they spend the night there in Lys, grateful for the solid ground but feeling more or less uneasy by the welcome they’d received upon landfall. Dany insists that no one in their traveling company drink or eat anything given to them, stories and information about the Tears of Lys fresh on her brain, and she hardly cares if it sounds paranoid. Something in the way the magisters said _welcome to Lys, Daenerys Targaryen_ nags at her.

They eat salted meats and canned vegetables from their ship. In the morning, after a fitful night’s rest on Dany’s part, they’re given an invitation to dine with the magisters before their departure. Lyaella and Aemon desperately want to (the ripe fruits hanging from the various trees outside their quarters seem to make their canned and salted food from the ship even more torturous to them), but Dany steadfast refuses. She can hardly articulate why to Davos or Arya, and when she touches Jon’s hand and shares her feelings and suspicions with him, she knows there’s no reasons— just a feeling.

Her feeling is correct. When she politely declines their invitation to dine, the magisters come to her, and they bring with them a threat.

“You will do well to leave now and leave quietly. Your stint in Tyrosh won’t be tolerated here.”

Dany and Jon share a look. Jon looks at Davos afterwards, and Davos shrugs. Though considering they are speaking in Valyrian, his shrug might be more from not comprehending what is being said in general rather than being confused by the magister’s words.

“My ‘stint?’” Daenerys repeats. The word he’s using doesn’t translate well into any language; as far as she knows, it means something akin to some activity done for nefarious, plotting purposes. Of which, she has none. She wonders if his particular dialect lends a slightly altered connotation to the term. “I thought I was rather well-behaved in Tyrosh. We made our beds upon departing and everything.”

“Yes,” the magister says dryly. “And you tucked one of your little notes between the coverlets, too. How extremely courteous of you.”

Dany works to keep her face impassive. Beyond a slight rise to her eyebrows, she hardly reacts.

“My little notes?” she repeats.

The magister sneers. “Your cunning is as renowned as your beauty; do not pretend to be daft to the words I’m saying.”

“Oh, I would never pretend to be daft,” Daenerys assures him, her tone held casual and light. Though she’s beginning to feel sick. “Still— I can’t say I can recall the notes you’re speaking of.”

The magister produces a scroll of paper from his cloak. He unrolls what looks like a long raven, and from inside that scroll, he pulls a folded bit of parchment.

“Perhaps this will help refresh your memory. This note is identical to the ones dropped out of the window of your quarters in Tyrosh.”

Dany understands now. As she reaches out and takes the folded paper, it comes as no surprise to her to see her daughter’s hand upon the pages. She works hard to keep her face impassive. She unfolds it all the way and holds it between her and Jon; he can’t read Valyrian well at all, but he knows their little daughter’s handwriting.

The problem is clear to Daenerys at once. Her daughter hasn’t tried to instigate something— the note is simply a letter of encouragement and reassurances— but her ineptitude with writing in Valyrian has led to some unfortunate misunderstandings. She’s misspelled quite a few words, and of those words, she’s misspelled a word that changed the entire meaning of what’s been written. What was clearly supposed to be _‘Do not worry. It is going to be okay. It is wrong what is happening to you…but we are going to make it better soon, I promise. When my brother and I rule, everyone in the world will be free,’_ ended up reading as, _‘Do not worry. It is going to be okay. It is wrong what is happening to you…but we are going to make it better, I promise. When my brother and I return, everyone in the world will be free.’_

Daenerys steps closer to Jon. She curls her mind with his, and she explains what’s happened. She touches the misspelled word and thinks of the proper spelling in her mind, showing him what’s been done— what they’re going to have to find some way to fix. Jon winces internally.

_What should we tell him?_ he asks. _They must think ‘when my brother and I return’ means on our way back to Westeros._

_I suppose we tell them the truth,_ Dany answers. _Though I don’t much like the idea of them shifting their focus to our children…I don’t want them seeing them as a future threat. I wouldn’t like them to form a negative opinion of them so early on._

_No,_ Jon agrees. _I don’t want that, either. What else can we say?_

_We can lie. If only we had Aemon’s conniving skills._

Right them, she wishes it were possible to talk to him this way— quietly, undetected. She searches the space around them, but she isn’t sure how to find a mind she’s never seen before. She doesn’t know what color to look for, what texture to feel for. What essence to grasp. Jon is easy to find, but Jon is nearly as known as her own mind by now. _You’d think Aemon would be, too,_ she complains to Jon. _I grew him inside of me. Lyaella, too. Those minds were once here with me…shouldn’t I be able to find them again?_

_Aemon’s mind can’t be quiet. There’s no way,_ Jon teases. Dany can feel his smile. _I’m certain he’s screaming expletives right about now. Listen for that._

She tries. She genuinely thinks Aemon could think up a lie for this situation. But she grows frustrated quickly and gives up; she just doesn’t know how. It was Jon who found her mind outside of the flames first, after all.

“I’m afraid this was a misunderstanding,” Dany finally says. She scrounges for a believable lie. She replays the words Lyaella wrote. And then she has a thought— quick, fleeting, and slightly altered in shape and feeling, enough that she knows it’s not _hers: Aella’s pigs._

She turns and looks at her son with visible surprise. He’s rocking on his feet and looking innocently up at the ceiling.

“I—” she takes a moment to make sense of Aemon’s thought, and then she charges forward with it. “My daughter is extremely fond of animals. All animals. Dragons, horses, dogs, cats, rats, goats, pigs— you see what I mean. She cannot understand slaughterhouses or even farms…seeing the animals in their pens breaks her heart. I’m sorry to say the letters she wrote to her favorite pigs back in King’s Landing must’ve fallen loose from her notebook as she played and studied….” She sees a sudden image of the windowsill Lyaella and Aemon had been sitting in back in Tyrosh… “She and her brother spent most their time in our quarters sitting in the window; I imagine these notes tumbled out and got carried away by the breeze. I do apologize for the misunderstanding. We’ll write to the Archon at once.”

The magister stares at her. “Your daughter was writing to _pigs?_ ”

“If you knew our daughter, you wouldn’t be surprised,” Jon laughs. He sounds entirely at ease— amused, even. It helps significantly. “She’s been insisting lately that all the farm animals be set free. That’s all the note meant.”

Their lie is working well. Daenerys is certain it’s going to work— but then Lyaella begins to protest. She starts to exclaim: “ _No! That’s not what I meant!”_ but before she can finish, Aemon bounces over to her and throws his arms around her in a tight hug. To an onlooker, it just looks like a sporadic moment of affection— but Dany can tell they’re communicating something, and whatever it is, it stops Lyaella’s outburst. She watches with a tense, grave look as Jon and Dany talk the magister down. As soon as he’s left, with multiple promises from Jon and Dany that they’re not stopping in the Free Cities to cause any trouble, Lyaella succumbs to whatever emotion is eating away inside of her. Dany realizes it’s rage.

“That was a lie, Mother! A _lie!_ I was _not_ talking about my animals! I was telling those poor people that we’re gonna save them! It’s _awful_ and _terrible_ what they do to them— ‘cause they’re _people!_ They were born like we were and they’re people like us, and they make them do all their chores and all their work for _nothing_ , and that’s _wrong!_ And I know what they do to girls here! I know! They make them have babies with people they don’t even know, people they probably don’t even like! And that’s very, very bad and _horrible_! _”_

She’s trembling with anger. Dany and Jon look at each other at once and frown. They assumed they shielded Lyaella from knowledge of Lys’s most renowned slave population, but clearly, they haven’t shielded her from anything. Dany thinks then of all the ‘research’ Lyaella’s been doing lately about the different places in Essos, and she’s afraid of what her daughter has read. She was reading a book on Lys just yesterday. Clearly, she’s read too much. Dany’s heart feels heavy.

“Ly—”

For the first time Dany can recall, Lyaella interrupts her father.

“I’m not a baby! I’m _not a baby_! I’m big enough to know that man is a small man! I’m big enough to know it’s wrong what he’s doing! And when I’m queen— when I’m grown up, and Brother is king— we’re going to fly our dragons over here and we’re going to take all the slaves up into the sky with us, and we’re going to let them watch as we burn those small men’s whole houses down! Their whole, entire ones!! ‘Cause you can’t do that to people and get away with it! You can’t take someone’s whole life away! That’s like murdering! Those men are murderers! R’hllor says they’re going to pay for it! I’m going to make them _sorry_!”

Daenerys has _never_ seen Lyaella so angry. It stuns her. She’s not sure how to respond, how to react. What to do. For a moment, for a tiny moment— she’s afraid of her. It’s something in the rage in her eyes, something in the energy burning and swelling within her. Something that seems primal and powerful and different. She doesn’t even look like herself.

“We’ve got to help them, Mother, we’ve _got_ to! They need our help!” she yells. “They can’t just get away with it! They can’t just treat people like they’re _nothing!_ It’s not fair!” She grabs onto the armchair and squeezes tight in her anger, her body still shaking— and suddenly, before Dany can hope to understand what the _hell_ just happened— the armchair is on fire.

Gendry and Davos leap to their feet from the adjacent sofa, and Arya cries out in alarm. Daenerys reaches out instinctively and pulls Lyaella to her chest and away from the burning armchair, though seconds later she realizes that was likely a pointless move, as Lyaella doesn’t seem to notice the flames eating up the sleeve of her dress at all. Daenerys quickly beats the flames with her palms while Grey Worm and Jon smother the burning chair with a heavy coverlet doused quickly in water from Arya’s tankard; the flames sputter and choke, dying out gradually and morphing into tiny pillars of dark grey smoke that stretch up towards the ceiling like long, ghostly fingers.

It’s quiet beyond the sound of coughing. Arya hurries over to open the balcony doors to let some of the smoke out as they all stand there in shock. Lyaella is quivering in Dany’s arms, and a second later, she begins to cry.

Jon reacts before Dany does. He tugs Lyaella up into his arms and holds her, his palm smoothing her hair as she grips him desperately around the neck. Dany shares a stunned look with Grey Worm, and then she looks at Aemon. He’s studying the smoldering armchair.

“ _Wow!_ ” he exclaims, entirely unperturbed. He smiles brightly. He’s the only one in the room who isn’t gaping. He turns and looks at Lyaella. “Do it again, Aella!”

Lyaella cries harder. The confusion creasing her little face is utterly heartbreaking. Dany isn’t sure what happened and doesn’t know how to help, but she joins Jon and Lyaella and strokes her daughter’s back, anyway. Her mind is whirling.

“I-I-I d-d-didn’t m-mean to!” Lyaella weeps. She buries her face into the crook of Jon’s neck and refuses to look at anyone. “I-I d-didn’t!”

“I know,” Dany assures her. It’s about the only thing she _does_ know. “It’s okay. Everyone is fine, the chair is…” she eyes the smoldering, stinking mess… “…fine.”

“What happened, Ly?” Jon questions. She squirms closer to him at that question, and he hugs her tight. “How did you do that?”

“I-I didn’t!”

Jon looks at Dany. She shares the same confused, skeptical look with him. Lyaella had been the one touching the chair— and then suddenly…

“Okay. Well, what were you thinking about right before it happened?”

“I was— I don’t know, I was just angry, Father! I was so angry!”

That much is very clear.

And Dany and Jon have faced many parenting conundrums over the past few years and continue to face them every day, but this is an unexpected one Daenerys has no idea how to begin to unravel. What does she say? How does she comfort Lyaella? How does she herself even feel? All of it feels trapped behind her confusion and her disbelief.

Aemon’s the only one not unsettled in any way, shape, or form. It seems like he knew this would happen— like he knew his sister could do this (whatever she’d done) for all his life.

“Don’t cry, Aella. It’s nice! ‘Cause fire is light and you can bring it,” he tells his sister cheerfully. He casts his violet eyes over the smoldering armchair, his gaze suddenly critical where it had just been soft and full of love (when aimed at Lyaella). “And the chair was _uggy_. Do you want to play mother-and-father with me?”

Lyaella lifts her face from Jon’s shoulder and sniffs a few times, and then she nods. Dany can tell Aemon’s casual acceptance of the fact she just somehow generated fire with her touch has made her feel less afraid and less panicked, as if Aemon’s nonchalance means nothing frightening or odd has truly happened at all. And to him, nothing has: he takes Lyaella’s hand as soon as Jon sets her down and pulls her over to one of their blanket forts on the other side of the room, chattering on excitedly in their language, not a trace of confusion or uneasiness in sight. Soon, Lyaella is similarly unburdened, and because of that, Dany makes no rush to talk to Lyaella about what just happened. Jon takes her hand, and they share in the thought that they need to— at a minimum— discuss why they can’t presently stop slavery here, but they both think _later_. _We’ll talk to her later._

So they make up some lie about what happened to the chair and have it removed from the room, share a tense lunch with Arya, Gendry, Davos, Grey Worm, and Aethel, and stew in silence with their frantic questions. They make their way back to their boat, not wanting to risk spending another night there in Tyrosh, and Dany feels the weight of each slave’s gaze as they peer at them through windows and doorways, eyes cast halfway to the ground as if they’re afraid to be seen looking. It pulls at Dany’s heart. She wants to reach out to them and say _I haven’t forgotten you. I care. I care. I do…_

But saying that now won’t do them any good. Only strategic planning, patience, and purposeful effort will.

The sight of the slaves on their walk back to the boat has upset Lyaella again. She’s angry once more as they step onto the deck, but it’s an anger tinted with fear: Dany sees her anxiously burrowing her hands into the pockets of her little cloak as if she’s afraid she’ll set fire to the next thing or person she touches, clearly deeply traumatized by what happened earlier that day. Her fear goes so deep that, when Dany reaches out to lift her up, she squirms away.

“You can’t burn me, sweetling,” Dany reminds her softly. She holds her hands out. “Come here.”

Lyaella throws herself into her embrace, her body trembling with emotion. She nuzzles and hides her face into Dany’s loose hair. Dany shares a look with Jon, both their lips turned down into a deep frown, and Aemon huffs unhappily at the sight of Lyaella’s discontent.

“I need figs,” he tells Arya and Gendry. He grabs onto their hands and swings between them. “Take me!”

“Take yourself,” Arya shoots back with a scoff. “Or learn some manners and try that again.”

Aemon kisses the back of Arya’s hand, his eyes turning to soft puddles of affection. “Please, _Awa,_ take me to get figs for Aella, please…”

Dany doubts she needs figs, but they indulge Aemon’s attempts at cheering her up, anyway. Jon walks over and strokes Lyaella’s back while Dany snuggles her close, both of them running through a list of possible things to say to her in their heads, but they haven’t settled on anything by the time Aemon arrives. He bounds up to them, sets his little hand on Lyaella’s leg, and tucks a cloth bag presumably filled with figs between her belly and Dany. Lyaella reaches down to take it, but she doesn’t make any move to eat them. As Dany knew she wouldn’t.

She and Jon take the children over to a cushioned bench on the other side of the ship, and there, Jon holds Aemon in his lap while Dany holds Lyaella. She attempts to address the various things needing discussion.

“We _will_ save those people in Tyrosh, Lyaella. I know you’re upset with us for not doing anything. For telling the Archon that your letter meant something different than it did. We’re not dismissing the problem; it’s just that _now_ isn’t the time to deal with it. We know how you feel, sweetling. And we know what you were trying to do with your letter.”

For Lyaella’s benefit, despite her deep-seated rage surrounding the issue, she listens quietly as Daenerys explains what happened with her letter. She explains how her misspelling caused trouble, she shows her the correct spelling of the word she meant, and she explains why _now_ is not the time to begin a war with the Free Cities.

“I know you want to help them. I do, too. I swear that I do. I swear that I _will._ But we must be smart about it, Ly. Can we agree on that?” She hugs her daughter’s tiny frame and kisses her cheek. “You and your brother are too important to put at risk. Father and I will deal with this one day when you’re elsewhere— when you’re safe.”

“Or when we’re big and we’re helping you,” Lyaella refutes. She reaches up and touches Dany’s cheek softly. Her gray eyes are full of pain and yearning. “I can help now, Mother…I fly well…”

Flying well has little to do with it. Dany has no doubts that Lyaella could steer Moonbloom through the sky expertly. It’s the other part of war: the decisions, the regrets, the suffering. Could her little daughter make her dragon set fire to _anything_? Could she live with it if she did? Dany doubts it. Dany doesn’t want her to have to find out.

“You fly perfectly. It’s not a question of that,” Dany assures her.

Grey Worm and Davos approach, their faces masks of seriousness. It’s clear they want to talk about something. _I’ll go speak with them,_ Jon thinks. Dany resists the urge to frown. He touches her knee. _You’re handling this perfectly._

Dany doesn’t think there’s any perfect way to handle your children inadvertently trying to cause a war or setting fire to things with their mere touch. But R’hllor knows she’ll try to find it anyway.

_All right. Hurry back,_ she asks of him, and he leans in and kisses her lips softly.

She beckons Aemon over to her so Jon can rise; he clambers up into her lap happily enough and cuddles up to his sister. Dany taps his nose. “ _No more_ political maneuvers. No more notes, no more plotting— no more.”

Aemon’s smile is sly. “ _One_ more?” he bargains.

Dany’s smiling as she reaches up to tickle his side. He squirms happily and falls into giggles. “ _No._ NO more,” Dany repeats firmly. “Don’t think I won’t put you on Drogon with me and fly you back home.” _I’d love to be back home._ Leaving it was beginning to feel so foolish. After an entire life searching for it, after finally finding it…and she willingly sailed away.

Aemon’s eyes light up. “ _Can we,_ Mamma?! I hate this boat!”

“I meant without Father and without Sister.”

Aemon looks away from her at once. “Nevermind. Nevermind!”

Dany leans down and kisses the top of his head. She leaves her face pressed there for a moment; his hair always smells so good, a mixture of _him—_ a scent a mother can detect, a scent she’s been familiar with since the first time she held him— and a fresh burst of clean-smelling soap. He’s probably the best-smelling person on their boat at any given time; she sometimes jokes to Jon that the clean nature of his birth made him intolerant to dirtiness, but she can’t say she particularly minds it. It’s nice to cuddle her little son and have him smell of soap and not mud or animal dung like other little boys.

“You two must stay out of trouble. Trouble is anything that is going to cause a war. Things like leaving letters to slaves when you are Targaryens _will_ cause war. We are not starting riots. We are not starting protests. We are here to talk to Kinvara, review matters in Dragon’s Bay with Daario, and go home. Is that understood?”

Lyaella shifts uneasily in Dany’s lap. When Dany lifts her face from Aemon’s dark hair, she sees pure torment on her daughter’s face.

“They eat _dogs_ here, Mamma…”

“Yes. And you are not to sneak off and find where they keep them and set them free, petition for their cuisine to change, riot in the streets, or write damning letters to the butchers. Is that clear, Lyaella?”

It’s not. Dany can tell by the way Lyaella and Aemon are looking at each other, their expressions thoughtful and calculating.

“Can we buy all the dogs from them and keep them as our pets?” Lyaella asks hopefully.

“No.”

“Like a few, maybe?” Aemon questions, his eyes widened with exaggerated innocence and his smile one of honey-sweetness. He rises up and kisses Dany’s cheek softly.

“No, Aemon,” Dany sighs— though of course her heart has softened, and she’s finding herself thinking _well, maybe we could adopt a few…_

“Ten? Or five?” Aemon tries. _Five isn’t so many. We have room in Rhaella’s Fortress for five dogs…_

Aemon flutters his thick, dark eyelashes and softly pets Dany’s cheek. “Or maybe fifty, Mamma?”

Dany can’t help but laugh at that. His manipulations were working quite well until he overshot.

“ _No_. Jon, come and get your son,” Dany says, half-joking. She twists at the waist and looks in the direction Jon walked in; he’s in deep conversation with Davos and Grey Worm near the bow of the boat, the crimson glow of the setting sun puddling his curls and his cheekbones, but he looks up at the sound of his name. He murmurs something to Davos and then walks over to them. He reaches down and plucks Aemon from Dany’s lap, tossing him unceremoniously into the air a half-second later. Aemon howls with laughter, no fear in sight.

“What are you doing?” Jon asks their son, smiling along with his laughter. “Are you arguing with Mother?”

“He’s trying to convince me to adopt fifty dogs from the meat market.”

“I imagine he’s attempting to convince you of this on a certain little lady’s behalf,” Jon snorts, and Lyaella turns and looks innocently at the burning sky as if she’s not even listening to the conversation, her face a mask of mild politeness. Dany wonders where she learned it from. “Next thing we know we’ll be coming home with a ship just for livestock.”

Lyaella looks back at her father at that. “We could do that, Father, ‘cause we can smoosh all the people from our boats together to make one freed up, and I can sleep here on the deck!”

“We _can’t_ , Lyaella,” Dany says. She gently guides her chin and turns her face to her so that she can look into her eyes. “Part of visiting another culture is respecting their differences. You know that, sweetling. That means respecting their differences in clothing, in food, in leisure—”

“In slavery?”

Dany’s not sure what to say back to that.

“That’s different,” she finally says. “You must respect the differences that aren’t hurting anyone. Slavery isn’t a cultural difference; it’s a violation of rights, _human_ rights.”

“But it is hurting…dogs are killed just to be eaten…and cows, and sheep, and pigs, and goats! It is hurting, Mamma. Animals have rights, too.”

“Slavery is hurting _people_ ,” Dany amends. She strokes Lyaella’s hair back. “We agree that hurting people is far worse. I know we do. I saw how angry you were, and I’ve never seen you that angry before.”

Lyaella’s brow furrows. “I’m _still_ angry.”

“Because you know it’s wrong.”

“But the other thing is wrong, too. Even if hurting people is worse, hurting animals is still bad.”

Dany can’t even bring up the fact that people still eat plenty of meat back in King’s Landing without getting Lyaella started on her furious rant on why they shouldn’t, either. If she had her way, they wouldn’t— not unless the animal was already dead from old age.

She cradles Ly’s face in her hands. “What are we here in Essos for?”

Lyaella’s eyes squint up a tiny bit, but she dutifully responds: “Talking to the priestesses and talking to Daario.”

“We are not here to deal with anything else. Those are matters for another time. We cannot fix the entire world at once. One day, that will make sense to you.” She kisses between Lyaella’s eyes. Lyaella hugs her around the neck. “I know you just want to help. Making the world better just takes time. And we can’t stay here forever and ever.”

She thinks: _I don’t want to stay here forever and ever. I want to go home. I want to have my baby at home, not on the sea. Not again._ She doesn’t say that, though.

IV.

Jon’s unlacing his breeches that night, his eyelids heavy and his mind restless, when Dany speaks.

“It’s like nothing happened. I’d think I’d imagined it if I’d been the only adult to see it.”

Jon sees a flash of their children just an hour prior, giggling and chasing each other around the deck. And then he and Dany share a tense, confused memory of the smoldering armchair. Jon tugs the laces free and steps from his breeches, a familiar cloud of uneasiness settling atop his shoulders. He’d shaken the weight gradually throughout the day, like shivering off tiny mounds of freshly-fallen snow, but it slams back into him all at once. His uncertainty is the cause of most his torment, and when he turns to face his wife, he sees in her conflicted, violet eyes that it’s the same for her. She continues rubbing lavender-scented cream into her hands and forearms, though her heavy gaze doesn’t part from his.

“I suppose it’s good that she can continue on like everything is normal,” Jon admits. His voice is quieter than he’d intended; he’d decided to whisper without consciously deciding anything, as if he and Dany are discussing something secretive and shameful. He wonders what that says about his own heart. Does he think it’s something shameful? Something secretive? Something bad? “Perhaps everything _is_ normal. Perhaps it was just…”

Jon stops, unsure what he’s even trying to suggest. A coincidence? A one time event? It sounds stupid even in his thoughts.

He steps over to his wife and reaches out. Her skin is soft and fragrant beneath his touch; he curls his fingers around her hand and holds it.

“What do you think?”

She lifts his hand up and kisses the back of it. Jon feels some of that weight edge up and off his shoulders again. After pressing a third kiss to his knuckles, she drops his hand and presses the jar of skin cream into it. Jon smiles as she turns and pulls her shining silver hair over her shoulder, exposing her slender neck and beautiful shoulders. He’s happy to dip his fingers into the cream and smooth it into the skin of her neck, the smooth slope of her shoulders, the strong span of her shoulder blades. Dany visibly relaxes with each caress of his hands, and Jon finds his body mirroring hers.

“I think…she’s a dragon. She’s fire made flesh,” Dany finally murmurs. She turns around to face him. Jon smooths the cream remaining on his hand over her collarbones, down between her breasts, over her scar. He splays his palm there afterwards and feels the steady thrumming. It grounds him like nothing else. She smiles. “It’s all just a bit more literal this time. That’s all.”

A moment ago he would’ve insisted it was much more complex than that, but right then, her surety has him feeling at ease.

“Can _you_ —?”

“No,” Dany interrupts. She laughs. He smiles into her kiss as she leans in and presses her lips to his. “I can do quite a lot, but I can’t do that.”

“That you know of.”

“If that were in my repertoire, I would’ve set fire to multiple people by now,” she murmurs. She reaches up and drags her fingers through his curls. “That’s just Lyaella. We always knew she was special.”

“There are a multitude of reasons she’s special, but being able to conjure fire from her touch is…not one I ever expected.” Jon freezes at the sudden sound of something thudding from above; he and Dany hardly breathe as they wait to hear if it’s woken Aemon and Lyaella, but they fail to hear anything but silence coming from behind the closed bedchamber door. In the brief moment spent looking away from Dany’s eyes, Jon feels his trepidation creep back over him. “What if it’s something…bad.”

Dany nudges his hip, her touch playful. “After all we’ve been through you’re suggesting fire might be _bad_ after all?”

“No,” Jon says quickly. He knows fire is good. Fire is what brought her back to him. There is nothing more powerful or pure out there. “But what if this…ability is something she can’t control? It happened when she was upset…what if it’s something that…I don’t know, happens any time she’s deeply emotional? Not everyone can withstand flames like you and her. Maybe Aemon— we don’t know either way yet— but even so…” he trails off. “I just don’t want there to be anything that makes life harder for her.”

“Seems to me that being able to procure fire would make life _easier_. I can think of quite a few situations in my life where that ability would’ve saved me misery and pain.”

He supposes if he thinks of it like that— as a protection, not as some mystical hindrance to normal life— it’s not as upsetting. He certainly wants his little girl as protected as possible. Lately, he’s been even more paranoid than usual, thanks to what happened with Temmo and Akko. It’s comforting now to think that she could protect herself with nothing more than her own fingertips, that even if her sword and her dragon were taken from her, she’d be all right. She’d be safe. And what of her ice circles? The Others? The _Great Other?_

“I don’t know what it means.”

“I don’t, either,” Dany admits. She steps into him and loops her arms around his waist. He holds her close and rests his cheek against her sweet-smelling hair. “But I know it means she’s powerful. And I want that for her. We won’t always be there.”

“No,” Jon agrees, the thought twisting through his insides like snakes. He feels a wave of nausea. “We won’t.”

_But they’ll have each other._ It’s the only thought that can soothe him when he thinks of one day leaving his children for good.

“So better for her to be as strong as possible. And it looks as if ‘strong as possible’ is much more powerful than we previously thought.” She kisses him again. “We’ll talk to Kinvara. We’ll talk to R’hllor. We’ll figure it out. We’ll get her through it. If it’s something she can’t control yet, we’ll teach her how to. We’ve taught ourselves _this_ —”

— _haven’t we?_ she thinks, finishing her words silently. Jon reaches up and brushes her hair back; after tucking a few tendrils behind her ear, he strokes her cheekbone with his thumb.

_Yes,_ Jon agrees. _Though I’m still not sure how._

_Nor am I. Jon, I heard Aemon earlier. Before Lyaella’s incident with the fire._

Jon’s hand slips from her cheek. He lets it rest atop her shoulder. “What?”

_It wasn’t quite like this. Like us. It wasn’t so…fluid. But I was looking for him…his mind, I mean. When we find each other’s, it’s—a texture, a color, you know? Yours is soft gray and metallic red…I can’t explain it, but I can feel it, and I can find it. I was thinking about how I don’t know our own children’s minds…what they feel like, what to look for. And then…I think Aemon found mine._

Jon waits, though his curiosity is eating at him. He’s known they’ll one day speak with their children that way because that’s the way they communicate with Rhae, but the thought of hearing Aemon or Lyaella’s thoughts is so intriguing he wants to ask Dany a million questions. Especially Aemon; he feels like he knows his daughter like the back of his own hand, but his son is still a mystery to him at times. He imagines his mind is incredibly entertaining.

_He spoke to me, and that was it; it was direct and brief. It felt controlled, like he knew what to do, like he’d been practicing it forever. Here, with us…this feels clumsy in comparison. A flood of everything— dozens of half-processed thoughts behind every sentence, every unfiltered emotion. But Aemon just…spoke._

Jon doesn’t think _clumsy_ is the right word. _Intimate,_ maybe. Because they don’t _try_ to hold much of anything back. Jon loves the current of her mind. He loves the memories and thoughts and images lurking at the edge of his own consciousness, the sea he can fall into with the slightest dip of his toes into its depths. He likes that it’s different from speaking. If he wanted to just speak, he’d speak.

_But Rhae won’t be able to do that,_ Dany reminds him. _So it’s good that we can speak to her this way. It’s good that she’ll be able to speak to her siblings. It doesn’t surprise me that Aemon seems naturally inclined to it; he’s great at getting into people’s heads, isn’t he?_

_That’s one way to put it,_ Jon thinks, the thought tinged with dark amusement. Dany tugs gently on his curls, her touch equally as affectionate as admonishing.

Your _son,_ Dany trills.

_Yours_ , Jon shoots back— though he’s smiling. _Aemon_ is _mine,_ he thinks, and he doesn’t bother trying to hide the thought from Dany. It’s too huge; the love swelling each word is immense. _My son._

He’s only just thought it when he senses movement from the corner of his eye. He and Dany turn and look back at the bedroom doorway to see Aemon and Lyaella standing there, their night clothes sleep-tousled and their hair wild. Dany sighs softly.

“Again?” she asks them. Aemon pads over to her and tilts forward unsteadily, burying his face into her legs and stifling a yawn into her dressing gown. Dany scratches gently at his scalp. “What now?”

“My belly hurts,” Aemon whines, his words muffled. He hugs Dany’s legs tighter. “I wanna go up. I want tea, Mamma.”

Dany sighs. “Oh, it’s so late, Aemon. What your belly really needs is for you to just go back to sleep.”

“ _Noooooo_!” Aemon whines. He tears up at once and clings to Dany. “No, Mamma! I need you and tea!! Mamma, it _hurts!_ Your belly hurts, too! We need _tea…_ ”

He looks up at her with wide, pleading eyes, his little face so deeply precious that Jon decides he’ll take him up for tea even if Dany doesn’t want to. She reaches down and cradles Aemon’s face, her hold affectionate even as she sighs again.

“Just _one_ cup.”

Aemon nods at once. “One cup!”

Dany meets Jon’s gaze. “Go ahead and take _your_ son up, then,” she jests. 

That share a smile. He nods at Dany’s legs. “Right now, he looks to be just yours.”

“We’re _all_ going,” Aemon declares, his tone remarkably bossy for someone supposedly in deep distress from their seasickness.

Jon looks over at Lyaella. Her eyes are shut; she’s leaning against the door frame, her and Aemon’s blankets clutched close to her heart. She’s clearly not going anywhere but back to bed.

“Sister’s sleepy,” Dany says. “I don’t think she wants to go.”

Aemon turns around at that. His arms slip from Dany’s leg. He’s frowning deeply as he looks at Lyaella, his expression pursing into one of genuine distress.

“But I can’t go away,” he tells Dany and Jon earnestly. “Not from my Aella.”

“Oh, good. Then you’ll just have to go back to bed,” Dany quips. She turns Aemon’s shoulders so he’s facing the doorway and gives him a gentle pat on the bottom, nudging him forward. “Go on. Back to sleep.”

Aemon locks his knees and refuses to be pushed. “ _Nooo!!_ I’m _sick_! We all go to the _deck, Mamma_!”

“Don’t take that tone with me,” Dany warns, her tone icing over in an instant. Aemon looks up at her, his violet eyes widening. He nods quickly enough. “I doubt Daddy minds staying here with Lyaella. That way she won’t be alone. That’s what you’re worried about, right? Her being alone?”

Aemon nods again.

“Jon?”

Jon doubts Lyaella is even awake enough to hear half of what they’re saying. But he walks over and stands by her side, anyway. She reaches her arms up for him to hold her, and as soon as he hoists her up, she presses her face against his heart and grows heavier with sleep. Meanwhile, Aemon clings to Dany once more; his whines are muffled into the fabric of her dressing gown. Jon’s certain he got the easier job of the night, and he locks eyes with Dany to ask her if she’d like him to take Aemon up for fresh air and tea instead, but she smiles and shakes her head. The love he sees in her eyes as she takes Aemon hand and walks with him towards the deck soothes Jon’s worries.

Aemon turns around and looks back at them three times as he walks away with Dany as if he’s making sure that Jon isn’t going to put Lyaella down and walk away. It strikes something in Jon, some spot in his heart that makes him feel both proud and wounded. Proud that his son— even so young— is thinking of his sister and watching out for her, just as she always does for him…but wounded that Aemon even feels the need to check that Jon hasn’t set her down. That he hasn’t abandoned her. It almost shocks him to think that it could even be a worry for his son. Doesn’t he know that Jon will never set her down? Never set Aemon down? He’d sooner carve his beating heart from his chest. His love for his children is enormous, and though he loves both of them with all that he is and all that he has (all that he ever will), that love is distinctly fierce when it comes to Lyaella. And it’s not simply because she’s his _daughter_ , as if that makes her more needing of protection than Aemon. Gods know Arya never needed any more protection than Bran or Rickon. No—it has everything to do with the fact that it’s always been this, always been them: Jon holding Lyaella in his arms. From the first night of her life. He’d been cradling her on a boat then, too. She was his only comfort during the darkest days of his life— the only thing in the world. The only light. She didn’t just change his world by coming into it and making him a father; she kept him in it. He’ll be holding her ’til the day he dies, even when she’s too old to truly hold.

He settles her back in the messy nest of blankets she and Aemon made in the center of his and Dany’s bed, and she reaches out to take his hand as she snuggles into the bedding and yawns. Jon’s heart grows tender at the sight of her little fingers wrapped around his. _If I could, I would stop time,_ he thinks, the thought sudden and vivid. He looks at her little features, at the moonlit glow soaking into her hair from the adjacent window. She’s unburdened and precious, tiny and pure. Completely safe. _I would keep her little forever._

It’s selfish. He knows his daughter isn’t his to keep forever, that one day— sooner than he can bear to realize— she’ll be grown up and perhaps even gone from him. Yet he struggles with that more than he struggles with anything else. It’s easier to accept that she can set fire to objects with just the ire of her rage. It’s even easier to accept that she and her own brother might marry. It’s not easy to accept that he could one day be separated from her. He’s been at her side from the moment she first took a breath, for everything.

He expects her to slip into a deep sleep immediately, but after only a few minutes of sitting at her side as she dozes, she rolls over onto her side and huffs. Jon senses it’s not just a sound she’s made in her sleep.

“What is it?” he asks.

Lyaella wraps her arms around her pillow and hugs it. Her words are muffled into the down.

“I want my _buver_ ,” she says, her voice slurred with sleepiness. Despite that drowsiness, she sounds vaguely irritated.

“He’ll be back soon. He went with Mother to get some belly tea.”

“His belly is fine,” Lyaella mutters. She yawns loudly; after snuggling deeper into the nest of soft bedding, Jon thinks she’s attempting to go back to sleep, but she speaks up again. “He just likes being Mamma’s baby.”

Jon had honestly suspected as much early on into Aemon’s boat theatrics, but Aemon has never admitted it.

“Did Brother tell you that?” Jon asks.

“No. I just know it.” She rolls over onto her back and blinks up at the ceiling. Her eyes are hooded with fatigue. “He’s just pretending.”

“He’s good at that.”

Jon almost adds _and he’ll have to get used to not being the baby soon,_ but he stops himself right as his mouth begins to form the first word. While he’s fairly certain Dany is pregnant, he’s not certain enough to risk exciting Lyaella only to let her down. Then again, perhaps they already know somehow, and maybe that’s why Aemon’s being so clingy.

She tosses, turns. Then: “When will he be back?”

“Soon.” Jon brushes her curls off her face. “You can sleep, Ly. If you start to have a nightmare, I’ll wake you up. I promise.”

She frowns. “He goes with me in my dreams, though, Daddy. So I’m not alone. I don’t like to be alone.”

Like Aemon faking the severity of his seasickness, it’s one of those things Jon always knew even if no one ever told him— something he sensed and accepted even if he never discussed it or understood it. He’s known Aemon brings her some sort of comfort since the very start— what with their mutual insistence that they are never parted at bedtime— and considering he and Dany have to be close to merge their own minds, it makes sense that they’d have to be side-by-side to do the same in their dreams.

And Jon is glad for it— truly— but it brings things he’s felt uneasy with to the surface, things he’s tried to push down and ignore— things he’s hoped would end up being pointless worries when the future finally shook itself out. But right now, sharing a quiet moment alone with Lyaella, he think it might be the right time to breech those topics, those anxieties and concerns. Because as much as he wants Lyaella to feel safe at night, and as much as he loves that his children find comfort in each other, he’s suspicious about why that is. Namely, he’s been worried R’hllor is pushing them towards some future relationship that goes far beyond brother and sister. If that happens on its own naturally, by his daughter and his son’s hands, that’s one thing. Jon could come to terms with that. But he doesn’t like the feeling that R’hllor might be manipulating that relationship by making them so reliant and intwined at such a young age.

“Lyaella? Does R’hllor tell you that you’re going to marry Aemon when you grow up?”

Lyaella looks up at Jon. She appears curious beneath her exhaustion. “No. I just know that.”

“What does he show you?”

Lyaella smiles at that. “All kinds of stuff! Us swimming and flying and laughing and protecting each other!”

“Has he shown you visions of you marrying Aemon?”

“No,” Lyaella answers. She’s perking up now, the topic clearly more interesting to her than sleep. She sits up and leans against the pillows. “Well, I don’t _think so_ , anyway, but all weddings are different. Alysanne and Jaehaerys had to fly away to Dragonstone to get married. No one wanted them to, even though _they_ wanted to. I think that’s romantic, but maybe sad, too.”

Jon nearly laughs. The word _romantic_ sounds so adorable uttered in her sweet, innocent voice. But he’d never want her to feel he’s belittling her thoughts in anyway; he loves that she speaks openly with him, and he never wants that to change. He always wants to be the one she can speak anything and everything to. _But if you want that, you’ll have to get over this,_ a voice in Jon’s head says. _You’ll have to_ truly _accept it._

Even now, part of him insists there might be nothing there to accept. Even as Lyaella rambles on, this time about Alyssa and Baelon, and all the things about them that make them romantic and— though she doesn’t use this word— relatable.

“You and Mamma are romantic, too,” Lyaella shares. Her tone is matter-of-fact. “‘Cause you check on each other all the time, and sometimes you do it just by looking. And when one of you is tired or doesn’t feel good or something, you sit in the audience chamber longer for them.And you kiss each other all the time.”

Jon can’t help but smile. “Well, we love each other. That’s what you do when you love each other. But there are lots of ways to love people, Lyaella. Just because you love Aemon doesn’t mean you’ll one day marry him. Marriage is…different. It’s much more than just being best friends and ruling together.”

“You and Mamma are best friends.”

He can’t deny that. “Yes.”

“You rule together.”

He inclines his head. “We do.”

“And you have babies together.”

Jon leans in and kisses the top of her head. “We certainly do.”

“Well, so will me and Aemon. Lots of them. So there’s lots of Targaryens.”

Jon sets his hand over hers. She turns her hand over and holds his, her gaze easy and trusting, not a single concern in sight. _She’s too innocent to understand what she’s saying,_ he tells himself. _She’s too little to know._

“Just because Alyssa and Alysanne and so many other women in our family married _their_ brothers and had babies with them doesn’t mean _you_ have to. You and Aemon don’t _have to_ marry or have babies.”

Lyaella’s brow furrows for a moment. She seems to sense something; she frowns, and he sees something akin to recognition flash over her features. It doesn’t appear to be the good kind.

“But what if we want to?”

The question hangs in the air for a moment. Jon knows she’s sensing his uneasiness for the first time, and the wounded look in her eyes pains him. It’s clear to him that she’s never once anticipated that Jon might be against it. She’s never once anticipated that Jon might be like the people who were against Alysanne’s marriage.

And he realizes then that he can’t be their enemy. He can’t be a roadblock for them to maneuver around, some quiet _but…_ uttered at the end of every moment of joy. He told Dany as much, and he meant it then, and he means it now.

He holds his arms out, and his heart lightens and flies up to his throat as Lyaella—without a second’s hesitation— climbs into them. He holds her close to his heart and kisses the top of her head. It amazes him how her scalp smells the same now as it had when she was an itty baby; it always rouses within him a feeling from a specific moment in time, when he’d cradled her to his heart on that tiny boat. A feeling of love and protectiveness so fierce it edges on despair. He still loves her just the same.

“Then you’ll marry. If that’s what you want, Ly…it’s your life. I won’t make you run away like Alysanne had to. I promise.”

_If, If, If…_ all the ifs enchain his reservations and keep them flittering about his mind. It’s difficult to come to terms with something if part of you is still certain it’ll never happen, anyway. But that’s his own issue; his job, from this point on, is to show his children that his love is truly unconditional so that they never doubt it. He must’ve been doing an okay job if this is the first time Lyaella’s ever considered that Jon might have an issue with her and Aemon. Especially considering his opinion on the matter has only gotten more relaxed as time has passed.

“Dragons should marry and have babies with other dragons, Father,” Lyaella says firmly. “’Cause if a dragon tried to have babies with a goat, that wouldn’t work.”

He understands what she’s saying. He nearly tells her that his own existence is proof that that isn’t _always_ true…but then he considers how special Lyaella is. She’s more a dragon than any of them. Could she ever really be understood by anyone outside of them? With her ability to speak to R’hllor, to one day drift in and out of her siblings’ minds, to withstand flame, and now even create it. Who else other than Aemon could ever even _accept_ all that— much less understand it?

“Maybe not,” Jon says. He kisses her hair again and hugs her. “No matter what, Mother and I just want you to be happy and safe.”

“I know,” she yawns. “I am happy, Father.”

He smiles. “Good. Stay that way, okay?”

“Okay!” she says, her tone easy and her smile bright.

It’s clear what makes her happy when Dany and Aemon finally return. She’s all smiles as she hugs them and curls back into her nest with Aemon. Jon pretends not to see as Aemon passes Lyaella smuggled figs from his pockets.

“Better now?” Jon asks Aemon.

Aemon bounces over to Jon and hugs his arm. Jon’s smile grows as he kisses the crown of his head.

“Yes. When are we going home?”

Jon gently hoists his son up and throws him giggling over his shoulder. Aemon kicks his feet as he shrieks with laughter.

“You’re sick of traveling _already_? We haven’t even made it to our destination!”

“Home is better!”

“Well, I happen to agree with you on that,” Jon admits. He tugs Aemon down into the cradle of his arms and kisses his upturned cheek. “We’ll be off the boat soon, at least.”

“ _Good._ It stinks like poo. _”_

Yet for all his complaining, he seems happy as can be curled between his parents, his fingers pulling absently at his sister’s tousled curls.

_You know he’s faking it, right?_ Jon thinks to Dany.

_Oh yes,_ Dany assures him. They share a flicker of amusement that translates into a smile. _And I have a suspicion he only wanted to get tea so he could sneak those figs for Ly._

_Ah,_ Jon thinks. He reaches over their children and sets his hand against Dany’s shoulder. His thumb caresses her skin softly. _I think he also enjoys being babied by you, too._

_That was never in question,_ she agrees. _He always has._

She thinks of Aemon as a baby with a rush of deeply affectionate fondness, and Jon’s happy to share in the memories of his chubby fists and gleeful giggles. They share a pang of nostalgia, too— a longing for time lost, time that they can never get back.

_Soon we’ll have another, though,_ Jon reminds her. It lightens the pressure crowding his chest. _Another baby girl._

Later that night, as he drifts off to sleep, he’s thinking of Rhae. The thought of having another baby soon both thrills him and terrifies him; it’s another multiplier to his love and to his heart, but it’s yet another vulnerability. Another little person so precious that the thought of them even being _sad_ sickens him with grief…how can he keep them happy forever? Safe forever? What does he need to do…he’ll do it, whatever it is, anything… _what do I need to do?_

_Nothing,_ a voice assures him. It’s a known voice, a clear one. Kingly. _Everything is as it should be._

And then he’s dreaming, but he’s not. He’s in the audience chamber back home in King’s Landing. It’s nearly identical to the way it looks now, save a few minute changes: a new stained glass window, an additional corridor built onto the south wall, new ruby tapestries— more chairs.

It’s that last change that draws Jon’s full focus. Instead of the two simple wooden chairs he and Dany use, there are three padded armchairs and a cushioned bench. And they are not empty. Jon’s eyes land on his wife from her place on the bench; her ankles are crossed sweetly, her thin hands set atop a round belly, her silver curls flowing—

But no. Jon feels a shock jolt his heart down to his stomach. Because he realizes it isn’t his wife at all. He studies the woman’s curls, her gentle beauty, her storm-grey eyes. His heart rises and lodges itself in his throat.

“Lyaella,” he says. But no one hears him or looks his way.

Dany is perched in the armchair closest to the bench. As soon as he sees her, he feels like he can breathe easier— things make more sense. His mind and body calm. Dany always brings a sense of _home,_ and now, standing here in the future, it’s no different.

She’s beautiful as ever, her face bearing a few endearing marks of time at the corners of her eyes and lips that only serve to soften her beauty. She and Lyaella are listening closely to some man stood in front of them— a moderately well-dressed lad with the hunched posture of a laborer— their faces bearing the same attentive, mildly-concerned expression. Jon half-listens to what he’s saying (it’s something about mortar), his full focus truly on his wife and daughter. Especially his daughter: his eyes dart from her swollen belly to her face he struggles to process the change in front of him. She’s a woman now, her features thinner and profoundly lovely— as he’d always known they’d be— but the sight of her with child strangles his thoughts for a moment in time, anyway. As if there were some part of his mind somehow convinced that there was a chance she’d remain a little girl forever, and that part of him was just assaulted with reality. And that same part of him wants to wonder who the father is— but he thinks he already knows. He eyes the way she’s seated on the left side of the bench, her body naturally providing space for someone to sit beside her even though no one is there. No matter how he might feel about it, and he’s not even sure how that is yet, there is only one person he can envision occupying that spot.

_She looks happy, at least,_ he thinks, and the longer he watches them taking audience with the people, the more he knows that to be true. He soon decides _glowing_ fits better than happy. She seems healthy, and between visitors, she drags her mother’s hand over to her belly and presses her hand over some movement that makes Dany’s eyes shine and her smile grow. Jon catches himself smiling, too. If he thinks hard enough, he can almost feel the soft nudge against his own hand. _My grandchild’s nudge,_ he thinks suddenly, the thought filling him with an intertwined rush of pride and fear. Despite the latter, his smile spreads. He wants to walk over and set his hand beside Dany’s, but he’s not really here. Not yet.

His daughter might not be queen yet in title, but she is in every other way. She speaks to the people with such warmth and love, yet underneath every word is a certain steadiness, a certain authority. One that only a queen possess, one that clearly says she knows what she’s doing and she does it well. He feels proud of that, too. He’s always known she was born a queen, but it’s nice to see it in action. Viewing someone doing what they were meant to do is inspiring, and Jon doesn’t know how long he hovers there in the fringes of the chamber observing her and Dany, but his daughter’s poise and easy expertise make him smile. He’s happy to see her happy— happy to see that, despite her softness, she’s as effective of a ruler as he’d hoped she’d be.

Things seem so bright and _safe_ that he doesn’t think twice about the man who enters. He listens to his cheerful voice, watches him set a large crate on the floor in front of himself, observes as he bows. He doesn’t second-guess any of it at first.

“Your Grace,” he greets Dany. His eyes flicker to Lyaella, and it’s then that Jon feels a flicker of uneasiness. He’s not sure why. It’s something in the man’s gaze, some lurking slyness. He inclines his head. “Our beautiful princess.”

Lyaella hasn’t noticed anything. She smiles brightly and lifts her hand in greeting. Daenerys, on the other hand, has narrowed her eyes. Even now, she and Jon are on the same page.

“Your name?” she asks the man.

Lyaella glances quickly at Dany, no doubt catching onto her odd tone. The man advances forward one step. The guards standing around Dany and Lyaella shift their weight and stand taller.

“Stefan, Your Grace. I have a gift here for our beautiful princess, our brave prince, and their miracle of life.”

Jon can’t even process this confirmation of his earlier assumptions. He’s too busy watching the man’s every slight move with bated breath, his hands curled into fists, tension winding tight around his muscles.

Lyaella goes to rise, her hands tightening around the arm of the bench in preparation to hoist herself up, but Dany sets her hand on her shoulder and guides her back down. She murmurs something to her that Jon can’t catch. Jon thinks it’s likely: _stay here._ He wants to walk over and agree, and it’s then that he feels his first pang of panic at his own empty seat. Where is he? Why is he not here to protect them? Where is Aemon? Where is Rhae?

“Thank you,” Dany tells the man, but her voice is cool. She nods at her guards; they advance forward to retrieve the box.

The man is smiling.

“Our finest flowers. A bouquet for every day until the babe is born,” he says.

But something isn’t right. As Red Fly lifts the wooden crate, it’s easy to see it weighs thrice what even hundreds of fresh-cut flowers should weigh. He exchanges a look with Daenerys.

“Let us try speaking truly,” Dany says. She’s studying Stefan carefully. “You clearly know you aren’t leaving this audience chamber if there is anything other than flowers inside that crate— and we both know there is. Which means, whatever this is, it’s more than some lone act of hatred. Are you part of the Seventh Order?”

Even Lyaella bristles at that. Her arms wrap around her belly. Jon knows he can’t do anything at all, but he walks over to them, anyway. He stands right at his daughter’s side as if that could protect her in some way. _Where am I?_ He wonders again. His eyes dart down to her belly. _I’m not…angry with her, am I? Maybe I am. Maybe I couldn’t handle it. Maybe the reality of it— the sight of it…maybe it was too much for me._

But he can’t believe it. Even as someone who has, at times, been inclined to believe the worst about himself, he can’t believe he’d be so angry at his children that he’d cast them off.

Stefan continues smiling, but he says nothing. Jon takes his silence for affirmation. He has no idea what ‘the Seventh Order’ is, but he’s assuming it’s some unit of the Faith of the Seven. He gathers that they have a problem with Lyaella, likely specific to the identity of her baby’s father. It’s not altogether surprising; he and Dany long theorized the Faith would be a problem in the future, especially if Aemon and Lyaella one day wed. But he hates that it is, anyway.

Dany waits a moment longer, but when Stefan maintains his silence, she turns from him.

“Open it,” she orders Red Fly. She shares a look with the row of guards flanking the far wall; they ease forward, their posture tense and coiled. Jon watches with bated breath as Red Fly pries the nailed top off the crate. Red Fly lifts it up— and then he freezes. Jon’s heart jolts.

“What is it?” he demands. But no one hears him.

Red Fly turns and looks at Lyaella, his face soaked in pain and horror. He drops the lid back down. The clang echoes around the chamber, broken only by the sound of Stefan’s pleased laughter.

Both Jon and Dany reach out for Lyaella as she stands. Jon grasps her forearm, but she doesn’t feel it, doesn’t stop. Dany’s touch is felt, but it’s ignored. Lyaella sets a supportive hand against the underside of her belly as she descends the stairs and steps down into the main level of the chamber. Her fear— like everything she ever feels— is easy to read: her steps are quick and tight, her hands trembling. She stops by the box and looks at Red Fly, but he makes no move to lift the lid. It’s only when she reaches to try and pry it up herself that he relents. He watches her face as he gently lifts the side of it, allowing her a peak into the box. A peak is enough. In the second it takes Jon to join them, Red Fly has already reached out to grasp Lyaella’s forearm and steady her. Jon can hear his daughter’s gasp echoing around his mind as he leans forward and peaks into the box. A wave of sticky stench accosts his face, and it takes him a moment to make out the shapes twisted and smashed into the contents of the box. But then he sees it. A small pink hoof. A kitten’s paw. A puppy’s velvety ear. The bristly, bloodstained mane of a tiny foal. Shattered fragments of an orchid-colored egg…

_It’s death,_ Jon thinks. He feels sick. _It’s a box of death._

He reaches for his hip, towards the place Longclaw should be, but he touches only air.

“Arrest him,” Dany orders, her voice trembling with rage. 

She’s at their daughter’s side now, her gaze hard as she looks right through Jon and into the contents of the box. Lurking beneath her fury is genuine pain. She takes their daughter into her arms, but there’s no point: Lyaella is so horrified and stunned that Jon doubts she even knows her mother is at her side. It takes her until Stefan is dragged off— still smiling— to process what’s in front of her, and when she does, she reaches a quivering hand into the box. She’s white as snow as she lifts a bloody piece of shell, the vibrant purple-pink marred and smashed. Her fingers close around it for a moment. She grips it hard enough to dig the sharp edge into the flesh of her palm. It’s then that she begins weeping. When she murmurs names to Dany, her face buried into her shoulder, he realizes it’s worse than he thought. These aren’t just any baby animals. These are babies she knows, babies she’s named, babies she’s likely helped to bring into this world in one way or another.

If the Seventh Order’s goal was to wound Princess Lyaella, they’ve found the quickest and most effective way. She cries until she’s gasping, cries until she’s close to retching…guards sprint in and out of the audience chamber, ushering people away, and eventually, ushering two in. Jon can’t say what’s more unexpected: seeing his older self right in front of him, or seeing his little, mischievous son as a man. Both are overstepped by the urgency of his daughter’s pain. He hardly has time to process Aemon’s strong, striking features, his beautiful face and handsome build, or his own appearance so far into the future. Both his future self and Aemon are at Lyaella’s side in an instant, Jon with a look identical to the one he must be wearing now— deeply anguished concern— and Aemon with a hard look clearly masking something deeper.

“What’s happened? What’s—” Jon’s future self stops. He shoves the heavy lid of the crate to the side and peeks inside. He studies the contents, taking time to examine every body shoved and packed inside of it like he’s taking stock. Aemon, however, hardly glances; Jon sees him look briefly, and then he looks back at Lyaella, his face as hard as it’d been seconds prior. He reaches up and takes Lyaella’s face in his hands; his thumbs brush at her cascading tears as he studies her eyes with an intensity that brings inexplicable tears to the back of Jon’s eyes. Lyaella sinks into his touch; more tears surge down her cheeks, and for a moment, Jon’s convinced Aemon is somehow holding her up from just his gentle, affectionate hold on her face. He leans close and kisses her left cheek, then her right, then her lips. Jon forgets to find it strange. It seems so natural and so expected that he hardly processes it at all.

It’s so quiet in the audience chamber that Jon can hear the sound of birds passing from above. Lyaella touches Aemon’s hip with her left hand, and then he looks down at her right. His hand slips from her cheek and lowers to take the offered piece of shell from her. He turns it over in his hands. For a moment, Jon thinks his fingers tremble, but it stops as soon as it started, and when he steps around to get a better look at Aemon’s face, it’s as still as it’d been before. Yet he can sense a storm brewing within him.

He tucks the bit of shell into his cloak pocket with a gentleness so conscientious that Jon wonders if he thinks the dragon egg can be mended. After that, he lowers both his hands to Lyaella’s belly. And it’s then that Jon’s eyes blur with tears. Because he understands everything Aemon is feeling right then, right to the dark depths of it.

Everyone in the audience chamber looks when Aemon finally speaks, and it’s nothing more than a single word.

“Who?”

Lyaella shakes her head. Jon doubts she could speak even if she wanted to. Jon expects her to collapse in Aemon’s arms— she looks that devastated— but after they share another long look, Aemon steps back from her and turns towards the box. Jon’s future self is the one who sweeps Lyaella into a tight hug and holds her.

Jon doesn’t understand what his son is doing. He shrugs his cloak off, reaches into the crate, and pulls out the slaughtered piglet. He wraps it in his cloak like he’s swaddling a baby, and then he beckons a guard over and murmurs something to him. The guard takes the bundle with a nod and walks off. Aemon doesn’t stop there. He removes dead baby animal after dead baby animal, taking cloaks from guards and wrapping the corpses before passing them off to be taken elsewhere (likely cremated or buried in the Memorial Gardens, Jon thinks). He doesn’t cry. Doesn’t shake. Doesn’t retch. He’s steady up until he gets to the bottom of the crate, and then Jon has to look away— both Jons. The sight of the mangled baby dragon is too horrific to bear. Especially since it’s clear to everyone what the message being sent truly is. What the Seventh Order is really threatening.

This time, Aemon’s composure wavers. His control slips just enough for Jon to see the pain and fury coursing through him, and it is immense. The expression on his face is almost frightening. He takes extra care in removing every bit of shell from the crate, and then he delicately wraps the tiny, illformed body in the last provided cloak. He seems to have a harder time passing this bundle off; his jaw flexes as the guard reaches for it, and for a moment, he just holds the seeping fabric to his chest.

He turns and looks at his mother.

“ _Who_?” he asks again. The word is nearly a snarl.

She’s stroking Lyaella’s hair. Ly is still hiding her face into Jon’s chest.

“The Seventh Order. The man who delivered it is in the Cells,” Dany answers quietly. She glances down at the bundle in his arms. “We need to call the search off.”

Aemon looks away. For a second, Jon thinks he might tear up or scream or explode in some way— but after standing rock still for a moment, every muscle pulled like an over-tightened harp string, he gently lifts the bloodied bundle up and kisses the top of it. He passes it to a guard after that.

“That man may be in the Cells, but all of them aren’t. Not yet. Whoever stole this egg— whoever did this— when I find them, they will be punished.”

For a moment, his gaze is brimming with a wrath so intense Jon expects him to turn away and go after the Seventh Order himself. But he looks at his sister (his wife? The mother of his child, at least), and she turns and looks at him, and whatever they’re communicating leads him back to her. Jon watches as he shoves away his own emotions; his face softens and clears, his eyes lighten. He’s nothing but gentle and calm as he embraces Lyaella. She loops her arms around his neck and holds tight; he’s tender and subdued as he wraps his arms around her waist, no doubt acutely aware of the swell of her belly pressing against him. Jon knows what that is like, too. He knows the love and terror likely choking his son where he stands. He wants to walk over and wrap his arms around him and tell him everything is going to be okay.

But he doesn’t know if it will be.

“Let’s go home,” Jon’s future self urges his family.

And Lyaella, every bit a queen, shakes her head. She lifts her face from Aemon’s shoulder and wipes at her cheeks.

“No, there are dozens left waiting. I promised I’d speak to them all, I just— I need a minute. I need a couple.” Her tone is choked with desperation.

“They can come back later,” Aemon argues.

“No, I _promised,_ ” she says again. She moves her hand to Aemon’s. “And I can’t give the Seventh Order what they want. We can’t. I just need to sit for a bit.”

Aemon and Lyaella go back and forth a few more times, a good portion of their arguing happening within their own heads, and then they turn and head back up the stairs leading to the bench Lyaella had been sitting on previously. Aemon clearly occupies the spot to her left on a daily basis; they look right on the bench together, like they’re exactly where they should be. Jon knows his daughter is deeply upset, but after only a few minutes sitting beneath Aemon’s arms and sniffling into his shoulder as his hand strokes her belly, she regains a startling level of composure. She receives their people with a smile and doesn’t shed another tear. Jon’s future self and Dany stay to the side and murmur in whispers with Grey Worm, Davos, and Tyrion; their children handle the people alone with grace and ease. It’s clear they often do. Jon leaves Lyaella and Aemon as they discuss wheat rations with a farmer and crosses over to stand at Dany’s side.

“I don’t think we need to worry about that. After the theft of the egg, the Dragon Pit has been entirely secured. Not that Moonbloom or Frostfire have left the nest once since then,” Grey Worm mutters.

“Still,” Jon persists. “I’d like double the guards. There are only two eggs now.”

“Yes. Two. One for each of the babes,” Tyrion says, his voice calm and tempered. Jon feels a thrill of shock; _two?_ he thinks, and then he looks back at his children, wondering if this is his second grandchild or if Lyaella is going to have twins. His heart tightens at the thought of the latter, simply because he’s certain the risk must be doubled if the babies are. There’s no way for him to know just by looking. Her stomach is large, yes, but right now, it doesn’t look any larger than any other pregnant belly.

Tyrion continues. “What’s happened is unfortunate—”

“What’s happened is an act of war. If you think we can keep Aemon from retaliating _now…”_ Dany trails off and shakes her head. “Everyone in the Seven Kingdoms knows how Lyaella feels about animals. And these were specific animals that were special to her. One was Moonbloom’s _baby._ This was an attack.”

“We anticipated it,” Davos reminds her. Even now, he sounds calm. “The Faith’s fury on their wedding day—”

“This is different than them soaking the bricks of the Red Temple with blood. It’s gone too far to pull back now.”

“It hasn’t. You and Jon must speak to him and remind him of all the things we stand to lose if we react recklessly,” Tyrion persists. “He is not yet the king; he doesn’t get to decide and act on his own whims.”

“Do you know him at all?” Dany snaps. “You think he cares of rules where Lyaella is concerned? _Especially_ now!”

“She’s fine. Let’s focus on that. Let’s remind him of that. They could’ve tried to harm her. They didn’t.”

“She _was_ harmed,” Jon bites. “Seeing those baby animals like that— that was harmful.”

“We’ve all suffered and been wounded by something or another. It’s not an excuse to go mad with rage and vengeance. He’s smarter than that. We all know it.”

Tyrion sounds certain, but as Jon looks from face to face, no one else seems as convinced. He knows why; when he glances back at the couple in question, the look on Aemon’s face as he gazes down at his wife is one of such utter devotion that Jon knows they’re right to be afraid. They’re right to worry. And he can’t blame Aemon for it at all. Another glance to his future self tells him he feels the same way, too. The sight of Lyaella in pain wounds them just the same.

Tyrion senses their skepticism.

“Well, Rhaena will be back in the morning, at least. She can knock some sense into him even if we can’t.”

_If his rage can hold out ’til then,_ Jon thinks. He’s certain his future self is thinking the same.

Yet they’re both wrong. Aemon does hold out— for Lyaella. It’s obvious that she needs him, and as long as he’s by her side, she seems fine. It’s a level of stability that Jon knows is somewhat an act of rebellion. _I can’t give the Seventh Order what they want,_ she’d told Aemon, and she doesn’t. She speaks with every person in the queue, and when dark falls, she tells those left they’ll be ushered to the front of the queue tomorrow. Jon can’t help but admire her poise, her grace; he finds his chest packed full with pride even though he’s certain she didn’t get any of those wonderful traits from him.

And by the time he follows them back to Rhaella’s Fortress, he’s certain they’ve all underestimated her. It’s difficult not to: she’s still so sweet, both in appearance and temperament, and it’s obvious that her pregnancy has only intensified their coddling. Time clearly hasn’t changed the tense way their family relates to the risks of pregnancy and birth. But she’s focused and calm the entire small council meeting, and the only time she mentions the animals is to specify where she’d like to spread the ashes (the Memorial Gardens). Yet despite her outwardly composure, Jon doesn’t miss the fact that Aemon doesn’t once leave her side. He wonders what’s going on in both their heads— in their shared thoughts, in their private ones. He doesn’t know until much later. He watches their family take their late dinner underneath the stars outside Rhaella’s Fortress, and then they return to their respective bedchambers. Jon has absolutely no interest in following his children to their bedchambers, but he has no choice: every door he tries to open leads him to the same place. He walks a dozen different halls and opens a dozen different doors only to find himself back in the same warm room, the walls painted smoke-gray and a cheery fire crackling in the hearth. It smells of toasted pecans and sugar, and after standing nervously at the doorway for a time refusing to seek out his children, he feels a warm weight settle atop his shoulders. Like an invisible arm embracing him. _Trust me._

He doesn’t want to impose on his children’s privacy. It feels as wrong as Bloodraven imposing on his own thoughts had felt. But he can’t make himself wake up, and he can’t leave. So he tries to believe R’hllor wouldn’t violate their privacy in any real way, and he turns and takes in the room. There’s a plush, silver sofa near the balcony, a wall of bookshelves bearing so many books Jon couldn’t hop to count them. A ruby, dragon-embroidered sofa in front of the fire, a thick Myrish rug just in front of it. A small table near the door bearing two clean goblets and a clean tray. A large, overstuffed featherbed, the silver hangings tied back, and his children.

It’s here that the loss is visible. Here that the full picture is in focus. Lyaella sits on the bed, two dogs, a puppy, and a cat leaping up at once to cuddle with her, and she looks at Aemon. Her gray eyes are glossy. He swallows roughly; a span of time little more than the throb of a heart passes before he’s at her side. He tucks her into his firm embrace, his face dropping to kiss the curve of her neck, and Jon looks away. He feels guilty for being here, guilty for imposing— guilty for not finding it nauseating. All the things he’d felt uncomfortable about in theory are suddenly perfectly natural and fitting. Seeing them together is unquestionable.

“I don’t know what to do,” Lyaella admits. Her voice is thick. “And Moonbloom and Frostfire— I hoped— I thought we would find their egg. I truly believed it. I thought— maybe someone just took it. Maybe they were going to ask us for something…money or gold. Something they needed. I just never imagined they’d do _that._ I never imagined anyone could be so awful. What if it hurt? What if the animals suffered?” Her voice breaks at that question. Jon takes an automatic step forward as tears flood her stormy eyes, but he can’t do a thing to help her. He’s helpless to stand there with his heart in his throat. Thankfully, Aemon brushes her tears away, his touch calm and steady. Lyaella inhales deeply, her hands rising to rest on her round belly. “And all day all I could think was…what _else_ will they do? What other awful things are they capable of, Aemon?”

She appears intensely nauseated and deeply wounded. Jon knows some of it must be from a sense of betrayal. It doesn’t matter that he’s only been here in the future for a few hours; he can tell she is a remarkably loving princess. He can tell without being told that she gives all she has to her people, day in and day out, and certainly even the animals of the realm, too. So to be treated like this must be especially gutting.

Aemon tangles his fingers in her silver hair, the curls springing as he pulls his fingers through. He moves and sits behind her, his frame large and strong enough to make her appear engulfed as he wraps her up in his embrace. He rests his arms atop her belly, and he presses and hides his face against the crook of her neck. She reaches up and threads her fingers in his dark hair, cradling his head to her shoulder.

He gently kisses the side of her neck. It’s a soft moment of pure affection— and it’s utterly contrasted by the intensity of his words when he speaks.

“Tell me to fix it.”

Jon nearly shivers. There’s something in his tone— some current of power and anger— that takes him aback. That frightens him. He steps forward automatically, like he needs to step in to protect Lyaella…but whatever furious fire burns inside Aemon is not aimed at her. He only has to look again at the soft, love-soaked violet of his son’s eyes to remember that.

And he’s not sure what it is that Aemon is truly asking (fix _what?_ ), but Lyaella knows. Her fingers tighten in his hair. His hands rub sweetly at her belly as he kisses her skin again.

“I don’t want you getting hurt,” Lyaella murmurs. Her words sever with fear.

Aemon smiles. It’s almost cocky. He runs his nose along her neck gently, his face still brightened with a grin.

“Don’t worry about me,” he smiles.

_She_ doesn’t smile. “I am. I do. You can’t stop me.”

He kisses beneath her ear.

“Tell me,” he murmurs again.

She glances down at her belly, at Aemon’s large hands covering the swell of it. She swallows roughly after a moment. Aemon kisses just beneath her jaw.

“The Council will be furious.”

“They don’t trust me like you do.” He doesn’t sound upset. He just sounds matter-of-fact. “I will take care of it, if only you ask it of me. You know that I will. And when I take care of it, I will _take care of it._ No more of this tiptoeing shit that Tyrion would have us do for the next two years. No more.”

The corner of Lyaella’s lips twitch down. “I’m just afraid they’re going to hurt them. Our babies. And I was never worried about that until today.”

“ _Let me_ ,” he implores. He opens his legs and tugs her back against him, cradling her completely. She sets her hand against his knee, her expression deeply worried. “Let me take care of you.”

“If there were another way—”

“There isn’t. We’ve tried all their nice, pretty ways. I’ve been very patient, have I not?”

Lyaella’s lips twitch up at that. She looks back at him, her hand rising to ghost along the shadow of stubble at his cheek. Her touch drags blue-violet blooms of heat across his skin, and Aemon smiles. If the fire hurts him, it doesn’t show. “You have been. For once in your life. I’m certain it was excruciating for you.”

“It was _torturous,_ ” he affirms, his voice drenched in dramatics. He takes Lyaella’s hand and kisses her fingers. “But I did it for you. Now let me do _this_ for you. Their solutions won’t work for this situation, not anymore— they’re too hesitant, they leave too much room for retaliation, too much room for harm and damage. _Their way_ got our dragon dead at our feet, Aella. Now it’s my turn to handle it my way.”

Jon knows he should be rooting for his and Dany’s way, whatever that way may be, but right then, enveloped in this private moment, he can’t help but feel completely convinced that his son is right. He has to remind himself that Aemon has been manipulative all his life— but he doesn’t feel like he’s manipulating Lyaella right now. Because far beneath his pleas and his confidence, Jon can sense genuine panic. He truly believes he has to take matters into his own hands. Jon feels disappointed in his future self that he’s made his son feel that way. Why hasn’t he solved this problem for them? Why hasn’t Dany? Where did they go wrong? He’d fix it right now if he could. He’d do anything.

And he’s not the only one who would do anything. Not for the first time, as he looks at Aemon’s face as Lyaella nods, he feels frightened. Not _of_ his son, but of what he’s about to do.

Whatever he’s got planned, he’s in no rush for it. He cuddles up with Lyaella, his hold so sweet that it appears as innocent as it was when they were children (even with the curve of her belly proclaiming that it isn’t.) He buries one hand in her soft hair and rests the other against her belly; she rests her ear over his heart. It’s so quiet and peaceful that when Aemon speaks again, his low, powerful voice reminds Jon of a peal of thunder.

“No one will ever hurt you or them. You know that, don’t you?”

She’s quiet for a few beats. She withdraws her hand from beneath the covers and moves to settle it over his, still resting gently atop her belly.

“I know,” she admits, her voice soft. “That’s what frightens me.”

He gathers her closer, strokes her hair, kisses her. “Don’t be frightened.”

“Not for me. Not for them. For _you_.”

He doesn’t smile this time. His cocky grin is no where in sight. “You needn’t be. Someone hurting me would be hurting you. So it will never happen.”

She kisses over his heart and hides her face there. “Promise?”

He smiles. “Swear.”

They lay there together until Jon is certain both are deeply asleep— but he’s assumed wrong. As soon as Lyaella has sank into dreams, Aemon opens his eyes. He’s painstakingly gentle as he creeps out from beneath Lyaella, gingerly moving a pillow to take his place beneath her cheek. He pads quietly around the room, gathering items that appear random to Jon: two pillows off the sofa by the balcony, two massive down-filled coverlets, a goblet of water, a red clothbound book, a piece of parchment and a quill. He sets the pillows and coverlets on the sofa in front of the fire; the goblet goes onto the table set just beside the sofa, and he uses the book to bear his parchment and quill upon as he scrawls something. Jon inches forward. He’s barely able to make out certain words— like _love, worry, soon—_ before Aemon folds it up and sets it carefully atop the clothbound book.

After those preparations, he changes gears. Jon feels anxiety curl and tighten in his chest as he watches Aemon don a black cloak, leather gloves, his arrow quiver. He pulls a large, golden bow from a hook on the wall and shoulders it. He turns to the door.

“Wait,” Jon says aloud. The thought of his son walking out into the night to handle this alone makes him want to cry. What kind of father is he? What good is he? “Aemon, wait. I’m here. I’m coming, too.”

But he’s not really here. And he can’t go with him, either. When he tries to step out of the doorway after Aemon, he just steps right back into their bedchambers on a never-ending, sickening loop. _I need to go with my son. I need to be with him,_ Jon tells R’hllor. His lungs feel tight. “Please.”

He tries again and again. But each time he’s led back here to this peaceful, safe room, his daughter snoozing unperturbed and his son stepping out into the unknown—alone.

_Not alone._ R’hllor’s voice flows into Jon’s mind, seamless and smooth like a river gliding into the sea. _This is not the point. I didn’t bring you here for this. Watch._

Jon turns his head and watches. He’s not sure what he’s looking at. His daughter gives a small jolt in her sleep and wakes. She touches the pillow beneath her face and furrows her brow; she’s frowning as she slowly sits up. She rubs absently at her belly as she looks around the empty room. He’s automatically worried for her: he knows how she hates being alone at night, how her dreams torment her, how sometimes Aemon’s presence is the only thing that soothes her mind. He expects her to fall apart in some visible way. Instead, though, she stretches and eases off the bed. She crosses over to the sofa in front of the fire and sinks into the embrace of its cushions. She reaches for Aemon’s letter like she’d knew it’d be there, and as she unfolds it and reads it, she laughs.

She touches the signature fondly and then folds the paper in half. She spends the next few minutes getting comfortable on the couch. She puts one pillow behind her, she shakes the heavy coverlets out and buries herself in white down, she curls on her side and rests the second pillow beneath her belly. Once she’s snuggled into the couch, she lifts the red clothbound book and opens it up to a marked page to read. She uses Aemon’s letter as a bookmark and sips periodically at the goblet of water he left as she reads, comforted entirely in his absence. Happy. _This is the point,_ Jon realizes. He lets go of the door handle. _It’s not about the Seventh Order or the politics. You’re showing me_ them.

_Yes,_ R’hllor affirms. There’s a pause. Jon watches his daughter yawn; her eyelids grow heavier with each sentence she reads in her book. _What do you think?_

What does he think? Faced with the future in such a way is overwhelming. He’s not sure what he thinks.

_I don’t know._

_You do,_ R’hllor counters. _Are you upset?_

He knows he’s not.

_Why not?_

It takes him some time to put his feelings into thoughts. By the time he does, his daughter has drifted to sleep.

_Because…because who else would know to do all that for her?_ Jon wonders. His heart feels tender as he gazes at his daughter. _Who else could know her as he does? Who else would be half as dedicated? And on my daughter’s side of things…who else could love someone as fiercely as she can? She’s always had that gift. She’s always been special._

R’hllor is smiling. He can sense it even if he can’t see it.

Lyaella sleeps easily. There’s no indication she’s suffering torment in her dreams. After some time, Jon hears a clanging sort of noise from a door on the other side of the bedchambers. He knows it’s a privy— his own bedchambers is set up this same way— and after listening to the sound of things knocking about from the other side of the door, he decides to try to open it. R’hllor must want him to: it swings open easily enough to reveal his son. He’s standing in front of the wash basin, rust-colored water streaming from his blood-caked hands, his face hard and set. He doesn’t notice the door open.

As Aemon scrubs his hands and forearms with a bar of minty soap, Jon sees what likely made the clanging noise he’d heard: Aemon’s bow lying dropped on the stone floor of the privy, the hardcase quiver lying beside it. Jon edges over and peeks inside it. He counts three arrows remaining. How many had been there when he left? Jon should’ve counted. What was he thinking? And what has Aemon done?

He uses up half the bar of soap scrubbing his arms and hands, and then he sticks his head beneath the stream of clean water— _such a stronger, cleaner stream than our spigots now,_ Jon can’t help but notice— and scrubs vigorously at his scalp, his face, his neck. Jon half expects him to order the tub filled, but he never does. Maybe he doesn’t want to risk waking Lyaella. Maybe he just wants to go to sleep. Jon can’t really tell how he feels…is he upset? Frightened? Sick? Tired?

He doesn’t understand the emotion coursing through his son until he returns to the bedchambers. Jon looks away as he changes into clean bedclothes, not wanting to invade on his son’s privacy anymore than he’s been pushed to, and then he watches as Aemon sinks down onto the carpet in front of the sofa Lyaella is curled upon. He leans against it and lays his cheek upon the cushions; the backs of Jon’s eyes burn again as he gently rests his forehead against Lyaella’s blanketed belly. He reaches up and gently drapes his arm over her hip, his fingers twisting into her silver hair flowing down her back. As he kisses the front of her stomach, he lets out a deep exhale.

_Relieved. He’s relieved,_ Jon realizes. Not tormented. Not guilty. Not horrified. Just reassured— at ease. Whether or not it’s true— though Jon is inclined to believe that it is, as his son isn’t one to fear something easily, and certainly not without cause— Aemon clearly felt their children were at serious risk. That his sister was at risk. And because of that, Jon finds it difficult to pass judgement over him for whatever he might’ve done, no matter how violent or extreme. _Anything for family_. That’s what he himself instilled upon his children, isn’t it? He tries to, anyway. This is what that lesson has wrought.

Lyaella stirs slightly. Her hand reaches out as if she knows exactly where Aemon is, even though her eyes haven’t opened. She sinks her fingers into his damp hair and pets through it, her movement weighed down with sleep.

“You okay?”

She sounds so young then. It makes Jon’s throat narrow. _She_ is _young,_ he reminds himself. Maybe not as young now as she is in his current time, but still young. Too young to have to worry about the things she’s worrying about.

Aemon kisses her belly again. She smiles sleepily.

“I’m fucking wonderful. Scoot over,” he murmurs.

She laughs at that, and it’s clear why: her stomach is dominating so much space it wouldn’t matter how far back she scooted into the cushions. But they shift about and laugh as he tries to squeeze behind her, and once he’s lying down, it seems he fits just fine after all. He wraps his arms around her and hugs just above her belly, his face lowering to press into her hair, and his body melts into the cushions. It’s quiet save the periodic groaning complaints of the couch frame. Suddenly, Lyaella turns her face and sniffs suspiciously at Aemon’s arm.

“You used my soap again.”

“Prove it,” he shoots back, his cocky grin returning.

She reaches back and swats blindly at his bottom. His laugh brightens the room.

“You always use it up. You use way too much soap. You owe me ten more bars.”

“Twenty,” he promises. He’s still smiling as he kisses beneath her ear.

For a time, they do little but hold each other and breathe. Jon thinks they’ve drifted to sleep. Then his daughter breaks the peaceful silence.

“Did you do it?”

Her voice is pinched with nervousness for the first time since waking. Aemon’s clearly having none of that: he smothers her in so many kisses Jon has to look away, feeling embarrassed to be witnessing it.

“I did what needed to be done and nothing more. It’s over now. Everything’s fine, and it will _be_ fine.”

The authority in his tone is complete. Jon finds himself envying it. He thinks himself a good king, but has he ever sounded as much like one as Aemon does?

“And you’re okay?” she asks again. “You didn’t get hurt?”

“Well, beyond a lacerated kidney I’d say I’m doing all right. The internal bleeding hurts something fierce, though.”

She gasps in playful affront. She tries to roll over to face him— likely to smack at him or something— but only manages to nearly roll off the sofa. She grasps on Aemon’s shoulders just in time, and he sets his hand against the small of her back and tugs her back to safety.

She sets a hand against his cheek once she’s facing him, safe in the circle of his arms. “That is _not_ humorous.”

“Then why’d you smile?” He waggles his eyebrows tauntingly.

She covers his lips with hers. It’s a definitive-sounding peck. “Go to sleep, Aemon.”

He hides his face into her hair and murmurs something Jon can’t catch— and for the better, he thinks, because whatever it is makes his daughter’s cheeks redden.

“Good _night_ ,” she repeats, though her tone is less firm given the laughter threaded through it.

“Goodnight,” he smiles. He kisses her sweetly and snuggles up; Jon is both amused and somewhat shaken to see them gradually assume the same cuddling arrangement they share in his current time: Aemon’s fingers tangled sweetly in Lyaella’s curls as they sleep, her palm lying over his heart.

R’hllor returns to him. He sees him this time. He looks like Rhaegar.

“Now you know, Aegon,” he says, his purple eyes on Lyaella and Aemon. “No more wondering, no more questions. No more doubts. And now that you know, what are you going to do about it?”

Jon turns and eyes the bedchambers. His eyes flitter from his sleeping children to a portrait hanging to the left of the balcony doors. It’s his family, their happiness genuine and glowing. He tries to imagine a different man squeezed beside Lyaella, a different woman squeezed beside Aemon. Even imagining it feels strange.

_“_ Nothing,” he realizes. He turns and looks back at R’hllor. “I’m not going to do anything.” He’s not sure it was ever his place anyway. Even it it was, he doesn’t think there’s anything in the world he could do to stop this from happening.

“Good,” R’hllor nods. “You all must be united for what’s to come. I know that you will be.”

“Of course we will. They’re my family.” He feels offended.

R’hllor takes three steps forward and reaches towards the couch. He tugs the coverlet down over Aemon’s exposed foot.

“You’ve got a challenging child here. You mustn’t ever let that make you forget that he was always your greatest dream.”

His offense only grows. “I won’t. I wouldn’t ever. I love my son. And you don’t have to tell me that he’s difficult. Trust me— I know.”

R’hllor’s smile is patient. “I wasn’t questioning your love for him. Be patient with him, Aegon. He’s got fire within him.”

That makes Jon think of Lyaella’s outburst back in his own time, with the sofa and the flames…he remembers the blue flame Lyaella drew over Aemon’s cheek here in this vision…he turns to look up at R’hllor to ask him about it, to demand to know what it means and what it’s about— but he’s gone. Seconds later, he becomes aware of pressure on his chest. And then he’s awake in his bed on the ship, his little son sitting atop his chest, his adorable face millimeters from Jon’s. His hands— _sticky hands,_ why _are they sticky?!—_ grasp Jon’s face.

“Father. Father. Father. Father. _Father_! Wake up, Daddy!”

He pats beside Jon’s nose. Jon gets a strong whiff of honey. _That’s_ why.

He opens his eyes and meets his son’s serious gaze. He means to demand to know where the hell he got honey this time of night, but when he sees his son’s tiny features, he’s seized by a rush of affection that knocks the breath from him. It’s just so nice to see him so little; Jon can’t help but crush him to his chest in a warm hug. He hadn’t realized how terribly he’d missed this little boy until he saw him again. He feels like he was in the future for years.

“Daddy—YOU—ARE—SQUISHING—ME—BAD!” Aemon gasps.

Jon loosens his love just a bit. Aemon patiently hugs him back, but only a minute or so into their embrace, he begins tapping his sticky fingers against Jon’s cheek.

“Daddy. Wake up again!”

“Aemon, _what_? It’s…” he lifts his head and peers blearily towards the window. It’s dark. “…Too early to be up and eating honey and bothering me. Where’s your sister?”

“Sleeping,” Aemon pouts. Jon lifts his head higher and peers towards the left. Lyaella is curled in Dany’s embrace, her face hidden into her night dress. “I need a bath _right now_.”

Jon throws his head back on the pillow with a groan. Bathing on the ship is an ordeal that takes hours. “No way.”

“Yes!! I’m sticky!”

“You should’ve thought of that before you snuck honey in the middle of the night. Where did you get it?”

“Auntie _Awa_ ’s chambers. She has lots of things in there.” Aemon lets out a pitiful moan. “Please, Daddy, I _need help_! I need _help_!”

At those words, Jon gets thrown back to the way he’d felt in his dreams watching his son walk off alone to handle something his father _should’ve_ been there to help him with. He feels that same desperation, that love. It works perfectly in little Aemon’s favor because Jon can’t deny him this. Now with the memory of his older self walking into the dark alone weighing on his heart.

“Fine. But you’re not having a bath. We’ll wash your hands and face. And stop sneaking out of the room at night, Aemon!”

“Yes, okay,” Aemon agrees. He heaves a bored-sounding sigh.

Jon carries him to the tiny privy. He sits him on the edge of the wash basin and helps him wash the honey off his hands and face, struggling not to laugh as he does. He’s not happy to be awake so early— but in a way he is. Because he gets to be back here with his little children. It’s lovely to see them so small again because it means he has the entire future to look forward to. Even if it’s a future of his son aggravating him.

Aemon’s brow furrows with deep affront every time he finds another sticky spot between his fingers or at the corner of his mouth, and soon, Jon is chuckling as he scrubs at his skin with the soapy cloth.

“Seven hells, Aemon, did you bathe in the stuff?”

“I didn’t have a spoon,” Aemon complains.

“Sneak biscuits or bread next time. Less messy.”

Aemon nods seriously. “Good idea.”

When Aemon is all clean, he reaches out for Jon. He’s sleepy as he wraps his arms around Jon’s neck and sinks into his embrace. Jon carries him back into the bedchambers, but he doesn’t lay him down right away. He walks the room in slow circles and pats his back like he used to do when he was a baby, so deeply comforted by the steady beating of his heart and the warm weight of him that he hardly feels his own exhaustion. _You mustn’t ever forget that he was your greatest dream._ He never had. He never will.

“Daddy?”

Jon turns his face, moving his cheek from its place against the top of Aemon’s dark hair to kiss his scalp. “Yes?”

“Will the honey wash from _bankets_?”

Jon lifts his face completely and looks down at Aemon. “What? Why are you asking that?” Aemon blinks. His dark lashes brush his cheeks as he does. Jon looks back at the bed and groans. “You didn’t, Aemon.”

“I hid the jar.”

“Under the pillow.” Jon doesn’t have to ask. He knows. Aemon loves to hide things under there. “Was it at least sealed?”

“I was saving some for Aella.”

“But did you put the top of the jar back on all the way?”

“It’s hard to get the top off, Daddy. ‘Cause Aella and I got little hands…”

Jon sets Aemon down. He sighs— it drags on and on. He rubs between his eyes. “Go get the honey, Aemon.”

He and Aemon spend the next half-hour trying to quietly clean up the mess enough to go back to bed. By the time Jon finally collapses back into bed, he’s exhausted. Still, though— he smiles when he feels Dany scoot back to lean against him.

“Where’d you go?” she asks.

“Long story involving Aemon, honey, theft, and a jar with the lid half-screwed on.”

Dany sighs. “Aemon. Come here.” She rolls over onto her back, leaving Lyaella still curled in the same position she was when Aemon and Jon left, and opens her arms. Aemon nearly steps on Jon’s stomach in his haste to clamber over his father and lie atop Dany. He’s remarkably precious as he snuggles into her embrace. It’s hard to believe he was causing trouble only two minutes ago.

As quiet seeps over them again, broken only by the now-familiar sounds of the roaring waves outside the ship and the creaks of passing footsteps overhead, Jon slips into empty dreams.

V.

They make haste to Volantis, all the more impatient to speak to Kinvara now that Lyaella has somehow manifested fire with her anger (or, at least, that’s what Jon assumes happened). They’re escorted to the Temple as soon as they arrive, flanked on all sides by their guards as people congregating on the streets stare in wonder. They’re led over black tile shiny as a mirror towards the sanctum; this temple is ten times the size of their Red Temple back in King’s Landing, and for most the hushed journey through the sacred space, Jon and his family are spellbound by its grandiosity. They’re escorted to the center of the sanctum, and there, two Red Priestesses tell them that the High Priest will be with them shortly.

“Priest _ess_ ,” Dany corrects quietly after they’ve left. Jon hadn’t even noticed the mistake.

But they soon realize it _wasn’t_ a mistake.

The man who walks in is wispy-thin and sallow; the deep red robes swallow his fragile-looking form whole. He does not smile at them or make any notable shift in expression. He’s introduced by a priestess as Aros, the High Priest of the Red Temple of Volantis.

“Where is Kinvara?” Dany demands.

Before anyone can answer, Jon feels Lyaella’s hand grasp the fabric of his cloak. She’s trembling violently as she scurries beneath the fabric and behind Jon’s legs, cowering inside the dark grey sandsilk. Cowering from what?

“Ly?” Jon whispers. He reaches behind himself and touches the shape of his daughter from outside his cloak, but she only steps further to the right so she’s standing directly behind him, entirely encased by his cloak and hidden from view. Jon looks at Dany. She exchanges a concerned look with him, and then they both look down as Aemon suddenly surges forward.

“Go away! Go _away!_ ” he explodes.

“Aemon!” Dany hisses. She catches his arm and yanks him back towards her, preventing him from charging at the adult. He pulls against her hold, causing Dany to tighten her hand further. “ _Stop this at once, Aemon!”_

Her voice has never been that fierce when directed at their children. Aemon falls still. His chest is heaving from exertion as he glares so spectacularly at the Priest that it seems like he’s trying to kill the man with just his gaze.

Lyaella is still shaking.

“Where is Kinvara?” Dany repeats. Her tone is tense.

Aros smiles. His lips are sandsilk thin; when they stretch over his teeth, they turn bone white.

“I am sorry news didn’t reach you yet. Kinvara has reached eternal peace.”

Jon’s heart lurches to his toes. He feels sick.

“What?” he demands. “When?”

“A fortnight ago.” The Priest adjusts his robes and advances towards them. Lyaella flinches and grasps the fabric of Jon’s breeches so tight that her nails dig into his legs. Jon searches for Dany— her soft violet, her bright red— and when he finds her, their worries flood between the opened gates of their minds.

_She’s terrified of him,_ Jon thinks. _Why?_

_I don’t know. But there’s a reason. We need to go back to the boat. I’m not telling this man anything about our daughter._

_No,_ Jon agrees.

“I am very sorry to hear that,” Dany tells the Priest. Her tone is measured now. Queenly, removed. “We only came to visit with her. I hope all is well here in Volantis?”

“It is getting better every day,” the Priest smiles. He gestures back towards the sacristy. “Stay and worship.”

“No,” Jon says firmly. “I’m afraid we are in a rush.”

The Priest’s smile spreads. _Like blood over fabric,_ Jon thinks. _Like infection in a wound._

“I thought you were here to visit Kinvara? Surely if you had time for that…?” His eyes drop to the level of Jon’s hip. He squats down and takes a few creeping steps forward, still smiling. He reaches towards Jon’s cloak. “And who is that hiding back there…?”

Jon grasps the sides of his cloak shut with both hands and advances away. He doesn’t know if he’s keying off Lyaella’s fear, but his heart is racing, and he has to work hard to resist the urge to sweep his daughter into his arms and flee.

“She isn’t feeling well.”

Aros looks up at him. It’s such a complete motion— one minute he’s staring at the cloak, and the next his head is snapped up and his eyes are drilling into Jon’s. The hair raises on the back of Jon’s neck. Aros makes no move to stand; he’s still crouched.

“We have spells for that. Remedies. Come.”

“ _No_ ,” Dany snaps. Aemon looks liable to charge forward again at any second; he’s grinding his teeth, his expression absolutely feral. “We must leave. Thank you, Aros, for your hospitality. Should you need anything, you can contact us in Meereen.”

The Priest straightens slowly. His smile evaporates.

“I will be certain to do so,” he promises, but it sounds like a threat. Jon can’t understand the immediate animosity here, but it frightens him. If the Lord of Light’s Faith doesn’t welcome them, what faith will?

Lyaella won’t leave his cloak. He takes clumsy, stunted steps with her still hugging the backs of his legs. Finally, after stumbling and nearly falling, he reaches behind himself and pries her out from the cover of his cloak.

“No! No! Daddy, no!”

He lifts her up and hugs her trembling frame. He waits as she latches her arms and legs around his torso. She tucks her face into his neck and grips him like she’d like nothing better than to crawl inside his skin and hide there. He wraps his cloak around her again, leaving just her head free, and he kisses her hair.

“It’s all right, Ly,” he reassures.

“I want to go home, Daddy! I want to go home!” Her panicked words are muffled against his skin.

“We’re going back to the ship. Then you can tell us what’s wrong.”

She doesn’t seem to want to talk at all, though. When they make it back to the ship, she ignores Arya and Davos’s concerned questions and remains buried in Jon’s embrace. It isn’t until Aemon brings her figs that she begins to cheer up; after a few bites, she’s willing to sit on a padded bench with her family.

“What was that about, Lyaella?” Dany questions softly. She threads her fingers gently through Lyaella’s curls, her violet eyes rich with worry. “What scared you so?”

“I— Mamma, I saw him before. In my dreams. He wasn’t nice. He wasn’t good,” she insists. She looks between Jon and Dany, her expression earnest.

“We believe you,” Jon assures her. “Can you tell us more about him? What did he do in your dreams?”

He _should_ be good. He _should_ be on their side, being a Priest. But Lyaella is probably more in tune with R’hllor than any of them; if she feels someone is ‘bad’, they’re bad. Jon doesn’t have any doubts when it comes to her judgement.

“I don’t remember,” she admits, and that fact deeply bothers her. She rubs hard at her forehead. “I just know he made me feel bad inside, Father.”

That’s good enough for Jon. If someone made her feel bad, they’re scum to him.

“You won’t have to see him ever again,” Jon promises her. He’s not sure how he’s going to ensure that, but he’ll do whatever he must.

“Why don’t you and Aemon go finish your fort?” Dany suggests. She tucks Lyaella’s hair behind her ears and kisses gently between her eyes. “We’ll eat supper soon. We’ll send for you when it’s time.”

Aemon hops off the bench. “Yay!! Aella, _Aella! Let’s go find Sir Woodteeth!”_

Lyaella’s face glows with an immediate smile. “Okay! Yes!! Let’s bring him some little cheese pieces and some bread crumbs!”

Jon sighs. “Is Sir Woodteeth a _rat_ , Lyaella? Because we’ve talked about the rodent issue.”

Lyaella— unable to lie to him or Dany— chooses not to answer. She looks innocently up at the sky and rocks shyly on her feet.

Aemon takes no issue with lying, though.

“ _Nooo_ , Daddy. Of _course_ not,” he coos. He steps over and pats Jon’s knee. It’s _remarkably_ condescending. Jon can’t help but look at him in surprise. “Never, Daddy.”

“Then who _is_ Sir Woodteeth?” Dany challenges.

“Our _petend_ friend,” Aemon answers. “He’s a knight. He likes cheese. Goodbye!”

The two scamper off giggling. Jon and Dany look at each other.

“They’re definitely going to play with rats.”

“Absolutely.”

Dany rises. “I'm going to carry the cat down there…where has it gotten to, I wonder?”

“Oh, don’t do that,” Davos chides. He steps aside from his conversation with one of the sailors and walks over to join them. Jon knows he’s been listening to their conversation all the while. If Lyaella is upset, Davos isn’t one to ignore it. “What if it attacks the rat in front of her? That will traumatize the girl. Let her be.”

“It’s a rat.”

“Well, perhaps you should’ve let her bring some of her animal friends along. Then she wouldn’t feel the need to make new ones.”

“She wanted to bring Sunshine! It’s not as if she’d asked to bring a little puppy…and anyway, she’s got Ghost and Nymeria, and the dragons when they fly by.”

“And now, Sir Woodteeth,” Davos shrugs. He sets his hand atop Dany’s shoulder. “I fear you grew that child two hearts instead of one.”

Dany smiles at that. “Wouldn’t that be lovely? Well, I suppose if she washes her hands well…” she looks up at Jon. “You don’t think it’ll bite her?”

Jon tries to think of a time _any_ animal bit Lyaella. He can’t. “No, I don’t think so. Aemon, on the other hand…”

Dany cringes. “Right. I’m going to go down there.” She turns and looks towards the other side of the deck, where Arya and Gendry are squinting at the disappearing skyline of Volantis and having what appears to be a lighthearted row. “Arya! Your Aemon-Wrangling is needed!”

“Just get the child a leash and be done with it,” Arya hollers back. She passes her tea off to Gendry, though, and walks over to them.

“He’d gnaw through it,” Jon snorts.

“Perhaps you should’ve thought about that before you made half a wolf.”

Jon laughs. He can’t help but hug her to his side briefly, his affection strong and sudden. It helps bat away his anxieties about Kinvara for that moment in time.

“Yours is sure to be majority wolf with the way you’ve been eating,” he teases. He pokes her side very gently, mindful of his future niece or nephew.

“Lyaella won’t let me forget it,” Arya rolls her eyes. “Do you think she’ll ever eat supper with me again?”

“Not without a judging grimace. Not as long as you’re eating platefuls of meat,” Jon says. “Even Aemon hardly ever eats meat around her, and I know for a _fact_ he secretly loves the taste of bacon.”

“Poor Aemon. Let the boy eat meat,” Arya scoffs.

Jon thinks of what he saw in his dreams. “There’s nothing poor about Aemon. He’s happy as can be.”

Dany snorts. She and Jon share a knowing look.

“Right, well, later I’d like you to unpack the look you and Daenerys just shared. But let’s go save Aemon from some sort of rat disease. Though, Jon, shouldn’t _you_ be the one going down to wrangle the vermin? Not your pregnant wife and pregnant sister?”

“Oh, but I don’t wrangle half as well as you, Arya,” Jon says. He steps closer and wraps an arm around both their shoulders. “But if you want me to hover over you two—”

Arya twists from his hold. “Ugh, no. Gendry’s bad enough.”

“He’s not,” Dany defends. “He’s been very level-headed.”

“Maybe in comparison to _him_ ,” Arya says, pointing at Jon.

Jon scowls.

“Jon’s the most level-headed of all the husbands,” Dany says evenly. She sets her palm against his chest. “Steady and entirely calm about all matters of pregnancy and birth.”

Jon looks down at his wife. He has to fight to keep an affectionate smile off his face, to not reach up and cradle her beautiful face in his hands. “Are you done?”

She’s smiling as she meets his eyes. “I suppose so.” She hooks her arm with Arya’s and sets for the direction the children ran. “I imagine he’ll be a new level of insane whenever Lyaella has children.”

“ _Seven hells_ …I never thought of that…”

It’s undeniably true. It’s a miracle he wasn’t balding in the vision he saw in his dreams; he can already imagine the deep fear and worry his future self must feel all day every day. Maybe time makes him better, though; he’s much less anxious this time around than he was during Dany’s last pregnancy, so perhaps after this third birth he’ll be absolved of all fear and all worries.

He doubts it, though. Not when the things at risk are so precious.

VI.

They’re all exhausted when they finally reach Meereen.

Dany can hardly remember their procession to the Great Pyramid. It’s a flash of reaching hands, smiling face, and her children’s awed stares. For as starstruck as the people of Meereen appear, Lyaella and Aemon seem similarly stunned by Meereen and the people’s reception. They’re loved in Westeros, but not in this same way. Dany had almost forgotten. It feels purer here— more genuine. _She_ feels different here. It’s a feeling that creeps back over her with every tired step she takes, a creeping power that seeps into her. A feeling of responsibility so great it reminds her of those strong, maternal rushes of intermingled fear and love she’d felt sometimes when holding her fragile newborns in her arms, when looking down at their tiny bodies and understanding that she— her care, her love, her body— were the only things sheltering them from death.

_It’s still like that here. It’s still like that now,_ she realizes. She looks around at the gaunt faces of her people. Her heart feels weighty. _Why is it like that now?_

She tries to remember if this is how she left them. Bony children grasping their mother’s threadbare skirts, fathers with bloody callouses on their hands and stress marring their features in deep lines, mothers gazing at the Targaryens like they hold redemption of some kind.

_Do we?_ Dany wonders. She locks eyes with a girl around Lyaella’s age. She’s standing in the stiff, uncomfortable grasp of an older man. _A father? An uncle?_ Dany hopes. _We must fix things. We have to._ She hadn’t even realized how deeply things needed to be fixed here, and for that, she’s already cross with Daario.

Much to her surprise, he’s cross with her. When they meet each other just inside the Great Pyramid, he’s frowning and holding a scroll of parchment.

“Revolts and riots throughout the streets of Tyrosh. The Archon threatening war. Were you intending on updating me on this particular…strategy at any point?” he demands.

Lyaella freezes at his tone. She’d already started bouncing forward, her face glowing with a smile of recognition at the sight of Daario, but his obvious anger makes her pause. Aemon looks questioningly between Lyaella and Daario, as if he can’t understand why his sister was rushing to greet a complete stranger.

“Who is _that?_ ” Aemon demands, not even bothering to lower his voice.

“It’s all right, Lyaella,” Dany reassures her. Dany glowers at Daario and gently nudges Lyaella forward. “You can say hello. He’s not upset with you.”

At those words, Daario seems to notice the princess for the first time. He smiles at her.

“My apologies, Princess. You’re so tall now that I hardly recognized you! Is that really you? Are you really Princess Lyaella?”

Lyaella smiles again. She nods her head, overcome with momentary shyness. Aemon pulls from Jon’s side and walks up to stand level with his sister, looking between her smiling face and the strange man with an almost offended look.

“It can’t be!” Daario says. He stretches his hand out to size how tall she’s gotten—

“Hey!” Aemon shouts. He sets his hands against Lyaella’s belly and begins walking forward, forcing his sister to step back from Daario.

“Aemon,” Dany scolds. She reaches down and grasps his shoulder, yanking him to the side. “That is Daario. He’s our…friend.”

“I don’t know _Daario_!”

“ _We_ know Daario. You weren’t born the last time he was in Westeros.”

“Nuh uh!” Aemon argues, but Dany’s not even certain what’s he’s arguing over. He steps from beneath her hand and tries to step in front of Lyaella again, but Dany drags him to her side.

“Let go of your sister. She’s fine.”

“Yeah, A,” Lyaella reassures him. She smiles. “He’s my friend. We both hate _bandissory_.”

Aemon looks so wholeheartedly offended at the idea of them all knowing someone he doesn’t that Dany nearly laughs.

“He’s not _my_ friend,” he tells them, stubbornness threaded through every word.

“That’s sad to hear, Prince Aemon,” Daario admits. “Because I hoped we could be friends. I hear you’re a fearsome fighter.”

It’s a decent attempt at winning over a boy Aemon’s age. If Aemon were a normal boy, anyway.

“You’re _old,_ ” Aemon tells Daario.

“Aemon…” Jon groans.

“How is old people gonna be my friend?” Aemon demands. He looks up at Jon and holds his hands out questioningly. And though Dany knows she _shouldn’t_ , she finds him so adorable— with his little hands held out and his beautiful eyes wide with innocent, feigned confusion— that she can’t help but laugh. It helps that she’s already annoyed with Daario.

Daario looks at Jon and Dany. “Well, I’m understanding what you meant when you said he’s Lyaella’s opposite in many ways.”

“I’m _not_! I’m not her _op-sit_!” Aemon declares, furious. Even though he likely has no idea what he’s furious about.

“You be quiet,” Dany tells Aemon sternly. She drags him to her side again and hugs him to her. “Daario is _not_ a threat to us. He is our friend, and that’s _that_.”

She feels her son’s glance. She looks down at him and meets his violet eyes. He narrows them. “Is he _your_ friend?”

A tricky question, even now. “Yes,” she answers, though she doesn’t sound as confident as she’d like.

“Then why’d he talk meanly to you?” Aemon challenges. He cocks an eyebrow.

“Oh, did I talk _meanly_?” Daario says. Dany exchanges a hopeless look with Jon. _There’s no way we can get Aemon to back down if_ he _won’t,_ Jon thinks, and Dany grimaces to show she agrees. _They’re going to bicker the entire visit._ “I suppose I was a bit frustrated with your mother for starting a rebellion in Tyrosh without so much as running the plan by me first.”

Aemon pulls back from Dany again. He reaches up and points a tiny finger at Daario.

“ _You_ don’t talk to _my mamma—_ hey!!”

Aemon squirms as Jon yanks him from the ground and flings him over his shoulder.

“Bedtime, Cranky. Let’s go.”

_Where_ do _we go?_ Jon thinks to Dany. Aemon huffs and kicks his feet angrily, but Jon merely grasps his legs with a steadier hold and ignores him. _Where are your chambers? Come with me, please._

_You just don’t want to look like you don’t know where to go in front of Daario,_ Dany teases. _Aemon’s truly your son._

But teasing aside, she’s ready for bed, too.

“Bed will do us all some good. It’s been a long journey,” Dany says evenly. She looks at Daario. “I did not intend for any of the sort to happen in Tyrosh. It was a misunderstanding involving some letters of Lyaella and Aemon’s. I’ll explain more in the morning. And in the morning, too, we need to discuss Volantis.”

“Yes, I was waiting for you to arrive so I could tell you of the sacrifices,” Daario agrees. “The most recent was last night.”

Dany looks back at Daario. Jon’s hold on Aemon’s legs slackens enough for Aemon to squirm and jump to the floor. He bolts over to Lyaella immediately. She takes his hand, but her eyes are chained on their conversation. She’s listening to every word.

“Sacrifices?” Dany repeats. “We meant the new Priest. Have there been sacrifices again?”

Daario frowns. “Yes. We have a lot to talk about.”

“Clearly.” Dany takes a deep breath. She can feel nausea beginning to build again. “I’m going to get my children to bed. Let’s meet in an hour or so. I need to know what’s happening with the Priest.”

“Good. We can talk about Tyrosh then, too,” he says. He kneels and gives Lyaella a slightly playful bow, but before he can even straighten, she’s flung her arms around him in an affectionate hug. And Daario may be Daario, but Lyaella is Lyaella: he softens at once, his face betraying his fondness.

Aemon huffs loudly. It reminds Dany of the way Drogon exhales through his nose when he’s particularly irritated.

“Hush,” Dany warns him.

His following grumble is more like Ghost, though.

VII.

Aemon pouts through a quick supper, his bath, and his and Lyaella’s multiple bedtime stories. Dany ignores it at first, but when he refuses to add anything to their story, she begins to feel worried. She tugs him onto her lap and wraps her arms around him, dropping a kiss to the top of his head. He stares stubbornly at the door.

“Aemon. Are you ignoring me?”

He looks up at the ceiling. Dany kisses his scalp and rests her cheek against his soft hair. “What has you so cross?”

He furrows his brow angrily but doesn’t speak. Dany presses her fingers against his chubby side and tickles him gently; his face brightens with a smile at once as he squirms and giggles. She’s relieved when he twists in her arms and reaches up to hug her around the neck.

“You yelled at me,” Aemon finally mumbles into her shirt. His hurt feelings are obvious.

Dany glances over at Jon, confused. He shrugs.

“ _Yelled_ at you? When did I do that?”

“You sayed _hush_! to me.”

Dany starts to say _that wasn’t_ yelling _,_ but she stops herself. Clearly he felt wounded by it, and arguing semantics won’t help anything.

“Since when are you so sensitive?” she questions. She brushes her fingers through his hair and looks down at him curiously, but he’s still hiding his face into her shirt. “You were being very rude, Aemon. You can’t greet people like that. And your sister is allowed to hug whoever she wants.”

“But I don’t know him!”

“There are loads of people you don’t know, Aemon. You haven’t even been alive for half a decade yet.”

“Daario is not a bad man,” Lyaella adds. She sets her bookmark inside the book opened in her lap, saving her place. “I would’ve told you if he was.”

“The other men were bad men,” Aemon argues.

It takes Dany a moment to understand who he’s talking about. “The magisters in Lys and the Priest?”

Aemon nods. And when Dany thinks of it that way, she supposes it makes more sense. The other encounters they’ve had with unknown men in Essos haven’t been wonderful.

“And I l _ove you_ , Mamma,” Aemon says. He sounds as ardent as he sounds reproachful. Dany almost feels like she’s a child being scolded by _her_ parent.

“And you were just trying to protect me,” Dany finishes. “And Ly, too.” She understands him then. When he nods his head, his eyes wide and hurt, she pulls him up into a cradle and holds him close to her heart. She kisses his little face what must be a dozen times.

“You’ve got to trust us, Aemon,” she asks of him. “If we’re not scared or worried, then things are okay, and you don’t have to protect us. And anyway—” she tickles him again, and he shrieks gleefully— “ _I’m_ the adult, _I’m_ the one who’s protecting _you_.”

“Nuh-uh,” Aemon argues, smiling. “I _potect_ you! And Daddy! And Aella! And Rhae!”

Dany kisses his cheek. “You’re a stubborn little prince, but you’re _my_ stubborn little prince. Just try to be kinder to Daario, okay? He’s helping a lot here in Essos. Or he’s supposed to be, anyway.”

She’s trying her hardest not to judge him based on the struggling she saw in the streets today. Ruling is difficult and complex, and good intentions don’t make money or bread appear from thin air. She knows that better than anyone.

“But he can’t talk mean to you.”

“I’ll pass that decree along,” Dany says, trying her hardest not to laugh. Aemon is entirely serious. She pulls the blankets up and tucks them over herself and Aemon, snuggling down into the pillows with him. “Let’s listen to Lyaella read.”

“Okay,” Aemon says happily.

Lyaella beams. “You want to hear about ocean currents?! Auntie Arya said it was boring!”

“ _Nothing_ you read to us could be boring,” Jon assures Lyaella. His tone is deeply fond.

“Yeah,” Aemon agrees eagerly. “I _love_ ocean _curdents!_ ”

Lyaella falls into giggles at that, and soon, both Dany and Jon are chuckling along with her. Aemon doesn’t seem to realize they’re laughing at him; he giggles along with them, his violet eyes flickering happily from face to face. His gaze stops and settles on his sister, and as she begins to read, he rests his cheek against Dany’s heart and smiles.


End file.
